Fitz jogged towards the main stage, cursing the time it had taken to pack up the Fungineers equipment, but ultimately glad he'd helped Mack with the task. He'd been all but ignoring his friend that afternoon, and while Mack had accommodated and even encouraged him to pay attention to Jemma, he still felt as if he owed the business a little more than that. You won't get too many opportunities later on. Well, that wasn't true. He and Mack would doubtlessly continue rooming together for the foreseeable future, after all. But it's the principle of the thing.

He got up there just as Jemma was starting to go into her last couple of experiments before the big finale. Sure, he couldn't see perfectly from the back of the crowd, but he could watch her lovely face light up the big screen, and that was good enough.

Until it wasn't. Fitz shuffled around, trying to get past one especially tall man blocking his view, and when he finally nudged his way through, was greeted with a soft, "Hey, Fitz. How've you been?"

Fitz's head whipped around and up to see Ward standing to his right, arms casually crossed as he watched the stage.

"Grant!" A thought occurred to him. "Have you seen John Garrett anywhere? We're tryin' to track him down." They're friends, after all. He might've spoken to him today. Fitz stood practically on tiptoe, holding his arms out for balance as he tried to scan the crowd for the preacher.

"Put your arms down, son. You look like a West Texas cheerleader at a pep rally." Garrett stepped into Fitz's line of sight from where he'd been standing, a few feet away on Ward's opposite side.

"You." Fitz's eyes narrowed in accusation, and he rounded on the older man. "What've you done with those fireworks?"

Garrett looked askance from Fitz to Ward. "You know this chucklehead?" he asked Ward.

Ward smiled tersely. "Fitz. The magician. You've met before."

"Ah, I remember now. One of those fortune-teller types." He held his hand out to shake. "John Garrett."

Fitz had no patience for this charade. "Enough. Where are the fireworks?" He drew himself up to his full height and stood as squarely as he could in Garrett's eyeline. "Where've you hidden them?"

Garrett held up his palms patiently. "A blameless man has nothing to hide, Mr. Fitz."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he bit out. "We all know you stole them!"

Garrett's face hardened. "Tread lightly, kid." A second later, he was back to the same insincere façade. "If there's been a theft, I'd be more than happy to provide a witness to my whereabouts for the day. I've been blessed with many gifts, Mr. Fitz, but even I couldn't be in two places at once."

"Oh, right," Fitz scoffed. "Just like that, you're gonna find an alibi for the entire afternoon?"

"I'm a bit of a sweet talker when I need to be." Garrett looked at Ward with such pride that Fitz felt he might be sick. "You wouldn't believe what I could talk this son of a gun into."

Everything clicked in Fitz's head. First Idaho… now Grant?

"What's he talkin' about? Did you have something to do with the missing finale fireworks?"

Ward looked mildly surprised. "She's your competition, Fitz. She and her friend tricked me into losing your rabbit - into ruining our friendship! The least you could do is thank me."

"No, no…" Fitz backed away slowly. What have I done? "She's not- I'm gonna be working with her!"

"You're on the same team?" Ward tutted. "I'm disappointed in you."

"Stop. Just- It was you-" Fitz's head was spinning, trying to make sense. Then he turned, stumbling slightly, and pointed to Garrett, still looking at Ward. "It was him! You don't have to listen to him anymore, Grant. He's a megalomaniac, and a thief." Fitz pressed on, words falling out of his throat, looking Ward straight in the eye and trying not to blink. "Just admit he made you do it. You can choose, right now, to tell the truth. Do the right thing, Grant."

Garrett put his hand on Ward's arm, drawing his attention back. "You see, son? That Captain Chemistry's poisoned his mind. She's setting the people of this town on the wrong path, but you and me, we're on a mission to change the world."

"Fitz, listen to me." Ward's words were insistent, rushed. "I helped you, remember? I gave you that iguana- gave you a fighting chance to do a great show, like you always do - like you did!"

Fitz staggered backwards. "No- that's not what-" It was Ward… wasn't it? He'd been thinking with his libido and he'd lost the rabbit. Right?

"Leave him alone, son." Garrett's voice remained even, measured. Smarmy. "He can't see the big picture, not like we can. It's not his fault he's weak." Fitz's mouth dropped open in umbrage, but Garrett kept on smoothly. "But you can't let his weakness become yours. Let's go."

Ward's brow was still furrowed in pity as he and Garrett started backing away. "We had some good times. I'm sorry, Fitz."

Just then, Fitz spotted Ms. Sif doing a perimeter sweep, not far away in the grand scheme of the universe, but given the size of the Children's Day crowd, far enough. Doesn't matter. He had to try.

"You'll be sorry," he called after them hotly, pulling out his phone so he could text Sif their location. Garrett'll pay for what he's done. Fitz planned on being a big part of that.

He'd just hit send when he suddenly heard his name over the speakers, and his head snapped to face the stage once more, mouth breaking into a huge grin and his heart muffin-topping with affection as she gave Fungineers some free advertising. Gosh, she's the best, isn't she?

"You there! I received your plea for help." Ms. Sif appeared at his elbow. "Have the miscreants fled? Quickly, we must give them chase!"

"Yeah, they went that way," Fitz pointed. Then, apologetically, "Running's not exactly my strong suit, any chance I could just-"

Sif had no patience for his excuses. "If I am to apprehend these men, I will require your assistance in identifying them. Now, make haste!"

Sif pushed past the crowd, many of them parting easily in front of her, whether it was her commanding presence or the heavy-looking flashlight she carried. Fitz trailed behind, doing his best to keep up, when he began to notice, amidst the typical audience noises, angry mutters, perplexed curses and through it all, a jackhammer drum beat with an electric guitar wail. Suddenly Seth's barely-pubescent voice screeched in with the lyrics.

"In the ancient halls… we fight! To save the manticore…"

Oh, no. No, it can't be. Liquid nitrogen gripped his heart as he turned stiffly to look at the huge white screen at the front of the stage, and time stilled for a second as the edges of his world shrank in.

Projected in massive scale behind Jemma, candle letters had just finished spelling out Ice Machine Apocalypse. The letters dripped wax… which became blood… which fell into a chalice held by - oh, God, knowing it's gonna happen does not make it any easier - a topheavy Medusa wearing only a chastity belt. Fitz ground the heels of his fists into his eyes in an attempt to wake up from this living nightmare. It didn't help.

"Sif! Ms. Sif!" Fitz called helplessly after the security chief, now too far ahead to hear him. I can catch her if I hurry. Onstage, Jemma had realized what was happening, and was gesturing wildly to someone in the throng, trying to convey a message over the very loud display going on around her. Oh, for God's sake- Lincoln, you fucking clownfish. Her mic had been turned off to route the audio to the song.

And what a song it is. "And the manticore, his quest requires…"

Donnie's voice chimed in, grunting monstrously, "The blood of a virgin!" He carried on word-burping the refrain over and over, while Seth's over-the-top lyrics shrieked and clashed with the drums and guitar. Well, if they're lookin' for virgins, Fitz thought wryly, look no further than the mirror, boys.

Fitz gave one last, long look at the back of Sif's disappearing head, and made a decision. Running might not be his forte, but neither was politeness. "Out of my way! Bloody move!"

He'd made it almost to the front when he all but collided with Lincoln, who was jostling his way past the spectacle-goers with a heavy fire extinguisher in hand. "What are you thinking, man?!" he screamed. "Turn this off!" Fitz jutted a finger frantically upwards in the direction of the screen. The nearly-nude Medusa had boarded her skeletal dragon and set off, its tattered, leathery wings flapping impossibly against a black background, pumping higher and higher into a laser-light sky.

"What? No, Captain said start the show, then get up there with her." He hoisted the fire extinguisher. "Why, what's wrong?" Lincoln squinted up at the display. "Are the colors wrong or- whoa, are those tits? Uhhh, I don't think Dr. Simmons would be too happy about you putting this in her finale."

Fitz stared dumbfounded at the younger man. His next statement, in contrast to normal human speech, came out like the primeval yowl of an alley cat standing his ground above a dumpster. "This isn't the finale, you idiot!"

He grabbed the fire extinguisher out of Lincoln's hands and wrenched it away, hissing out instructions to go back and shut it down, you incompetent muttonhead. For his part he started running along the front of the stage, looking for any wires or cables that led to the lasers. If I can just spot them, disconnect them…

He wished he had an axe or something to chop with; at this point, he'd sever the cables rather than let the little ones in the audience watch - his head tipped up - a mass of icy brambles growing up out of a skull's eye sockets, breaking through the bone and rising upwards as a spiky wall of vegetation. Fitz shook his head and kept his eyes down, looking for the cords. He knew what happened next, and he didn't really need to see two implausibly muscled, broadsword-wielding versions of Seth and Donnie hack through the thorns and save the manticore.

Fitz reached the edge of the stage, the small set of stairs leading up, and there they were, winding up a beam and secured by cable ties. Fitz's eyes nearly rolled back in relief as he started tracking the wires along the ground to their origin.

"Fitz!"

Jemma'd clearly had a similar notion about taking matters into her own hands, and was jumping in place underneath the projector screen, attempting to catch the edge and send it rolling up with a snap. Atta girl. No screen, no laser show. Unfortunately, Jemma was just a few inches too short to accomplish what she was trying to do. And that tall bastard Lincoln's just left her in the lurch. Fitz set his fire extinguisher down with a dull thunk and sprinted to her side.

"I've got it!" Fitz flexed his knees and leapt, his fingers hooking onto the pipe-like lower edge of the screen and yanking it down sharply. He released the thick material almost instantly, watching as it sped up and away, the metallic bottom crashing into the casing at the top with a resounding crack. And then it seemed as if the world stopped, the sound of splintering wood monstrous in his ears. Fitz watched, heart suspended in his throat like a Jello salad, as the huge tube above them creaked, and the long, heavy projector screen detached from the stage's top beam.

The far side came down first, and somewhere in the reaches of Fitz's memory he expected a Looney Tunes character to call out timber. He had just enough brainpower left in him to realize that Jemma was standing at his side, eyes trained upward and blown wide in horror.

"Fitz! Get back!"

All at once her arms were grabbing at one of his, her cries urgent behind him, pulling with a strength he wouldn't have predicted. When his synapses finally shot into action, it was all Fitz could do to throw his arms around her and launch them out of the way, twisting his body in hopes he'd pad her fall, instead of the other way round.

He nearly managed it. Fitz's shoulder hit the floor first, a jarring blow that left his teeth rattling around inside his skull, but at least he'd kept his arm wrapped around Jemma, absorbing most of the impact. A heartbeat later, gravity and momentum rolled Fitz onto his back, Jemma half astride him, and he found himself staring up at her dinner-plate eyes, breaths coming in like gunfire, mind still reeling from the fact that a part of the stage had nearly crushed them, and the rest of his body slowly becoming aware of the gorgeous woman currently on top of him.

The shouts from the audience melted away, everything outside the two of them fading back for the span of an epiphany.

"Fitz." His named puffed out of her and gusted past his cheek. Her fingers, pressed into the floor on either side of his head, scooted inward to feel along the sides of his skull. "Are you all right?"

She saved my life. Or more likely, saved him from some broken bones - let's not go overboard. But if he was being honest, Fitz was already a man overboard, and he was happy to drown.

"Jemma…" He scanned her face, telling himself he was checking for injuries. His hand came up to sweep the curtain of hair back up off her face, tucking it behind her ear, and her eyes slipped closed for a moment. When they opened, she stared at the spot on his throat that jumped like cloth on a speaker. She scrutinized his open mouth, panting in speedy train-track rhythm, and it seemed she might be getting nearer when Jemma's gaze finally met his. Her cheeks were pink, a trick of the light, perhaps, but all the more welcome because it meant they matched.

"Jemma, I…"

Whatever Fitz would have said was lost when the twin canisters at the front of the stage roared into life, blasting them with the scent of fuel and a searing wall of heat. They clutched at each other, gaping at the sight before them, as two huge jets of flame streaked proud and yellow into the evening sky.

Author's Notes:

Hehehe. So, there you have it! Really, compared to the finale, this was nothing. NOTHING. Right?
:-D

For my money, Lincoln was only supposed to be kind of careless in this (they were rushing real hard, after all) and not intentionally petty over not getting the job, but you can read it how you'd like.

Also, I really enjoyed putting in all the Garrett and Ward quotes, from these TV scenes that were dealing with life and death issues, massive betrayals, the fate of the universe, etc. - into a scene about a rabbit and an iguana and a box of fireworks. Like, chill out you guys, nobody is going to jail over this, LOL. Gah! So dramatic all the time!