Second Chances: Flash - Rough Draft

Chapter 19

Barry was very confused when he got a call from his stepmom telling him to have Team Flash meet her out in the badlands the following day and when he'd asked why, all she'd said was that it was a surprise. But that was why he, Iris, Joe, Cecile, Cisco, Caitlin and Ralph met Tina at some strange location in the Badlands. But what confused Barry the most was the fact that Iris seemed to have some kind of knowing look on her face. Like she knew what was going on.

"Where's Crystal?" Barry asked Caitlin, since she was the only member of Team Flash who was missing.

"Spending some time with Lisa. She took the news about Crystal being Frost very well and now I think they're planning some kind of trip." Caitlin said.

"Damn, she really is in the honeymoon phase." Cisco said with a grin and Caitlin chuckled.

"Yeah, but why are we here?" Caitlin asked.

"That's what I was wondering." Barry said.

"Well, I know you've been having trouble finding a new base since we agreed that you can no longer use Star Labs as your base of operations, so I took the liberty of helping out with that." Tina said as she led them over to the one building in the area. An old steel shack.

"You built us a base inside a tiny shack?" Cisco asked skeptically and Tina chuckled.

"Not exactly. I thought you of all people would understand that appearances can be deceptive." Tina said with a smile as she placed her hand on a panel, revealing a hidden hand scanner, which she placed her hand on, triggering a scan that caused an entire section of the back wall to slide away.

"Whoa." Cisco said as he and the others followed Tina inside what was clearly an elevator.

"Are we getting a secret underground base? Because if so, I have to say it is about damn time we get something that actually feels like the classic superhero stuff." Ralph said.

"You're not wrong." Cisco said as they all piled into the elevator, which then went down.

When the elevator stopped and opened, all of Team Flash were stunned by the new state of the art base of operations they found waiting down there.

"Okay, this place makes Star Labs look like a high school science lab." Cisco said.

"Seriously, where did this place come from?" Barry asked.

"Why don't you ask your girlfriend, since she's the one who told me about this place's existence." Tina said, much to all of their surprise as they turned to look at Iris.

"What? Did you guys forget that I am an air force veteran?" Iris asked.

"More like I try to forget that every day." Joe said.

"What does that have to do with this?" Barry asked curiously.

"This is an old decommissioned military base. One of those off-book facilities that even hackers can't find because there's no record of it. At least to civilians." Iris said smugly.

"But you still have military clearance?" Barry asked.

"It helps that my CO is now the director of Argus." Iris said, since Lyla had done a brief stint with the air force that had resulted in her being Iris's commanding officer during her time in the air force.

"That is definitely some useful information." Cisco said, wishing that they'd had that in the old reality.

"Yeah, Lyla hooked me up with the necessary credentials so that I still have clearance for things like this, even though I've got no intention of ever working for the military again." Iris said.

"Anyways, back to this base?" Barry asked.

"Right, anyways, this base is an old R&D facility that was abandoned back in the 90s. I figured it would make a good base for us and I was right, so I told Tina about it and arranged a meeting between her and Lyla for her to officially buy the base from the government, which was really just Lyla selling it while also making sure any traces of the base that still existed in the US government's records were destroyed." Iris said.

"I've been renovating this place the past few weeks to upgrade it and make it a suitable workspace for your team. I take it from Mr. Ramon's reaction that I was successful." Tina said.

"Oh yeah, this is incredible." Barry said as they looked around.

"I might make a few upgrades of my own after you show us around." Cisco said, since he'd need to install babel protocol into the base as an extra security feature, along with a few other choice additions.

"Of course. Well, this area is your new cortex." Tina said, since it did look like it had been modeled after the Star Labs cortex.

"How many levels does this place have?" Barry asked

"One level. This is a military base, not a corporate building. Though I guess as time goes by, it will be harder to tell the difference." Iris said.

"And since it's a former military installation, it has everything you'll need. I just needed to upgrade it." Tina said.

"Which I can tell that you did a spectacular job." Cisco said.

"Thank you Mr. Ramon. Now, on with the tour." Tina said as she led them through the rest of the base.

By the time Tina had finished the tour, Barry was wishing that this had been their base in the old universe, since it was much better prepared to serve as their base of operations, since this place actually had something that everyone in the base liked.

Cisco and Caitlin were both happy that this place was big enough for each of them to have their own actual labs to work in instead of the workshop and a small medbay and there was even enough space for Barry to claim his own lab to work on his own experiments. Speaking of medbays, there was also a much larger medbay that would accommodate more than one patient at a time, something that Caitlin was definitely a fan of. And it wasn't just the labs that were impressive.

The entire facility had been decked out specifically for Team Flash's needs. There was a fully stocked armory that was stocked up with both regular guns and the kind of pulse rifles Team Flash was used to using. Though the only members of Team Flash who needed them were Caitlin, Iris and Joe, since Cecille did not like using guns and Barry, Cisco, Ralph and Crystal all had superpowers that could be used to go on the offensive. They also had a much larger lounge, along with a relatively large training area.

"This looks like it'll be perfect for combat training, but what about my speed?" Barry asked, since he would miss the speed lab.

"I already took that into consideration and built a separate area designed specifically to test your speed." Tina said as she led them into a much larger version of the Star Labs speed lab.

"This is incredible, but how did you pay for all this, since I'm sure Mercury Labs would've noticed you diverting the funds needed for this?" Barry asked.

"Top secret contract with Argus. Lyla set the whole thing up." Iris answered.

"How come you didn't tell me about this?" Barry asked his girlfriend.

"Tina asked me to keep it a secret, since she wanted to surprise you." Iris said.

"So, what do you think?" Tina asked.

"I think it's perfect." Barry said and the rest of Team Flash nodded in agreement.

"I'll leave you all to get settled." Tina said as she left Team Flash to get down to business.