A/N: Drabbles that focus on two for one deals. Some good, some bad, some in between. Enjoy~
Warning, I tried for angst, and I own nothing. Sorry if it's horrible. Also, character death.
"You can save two lives for the price of one! Only-" Peter muted the TV at the smell of something burning, not even noticing the strange wording of the commercial. He looked around, standing and heading downstairs, not noticing the figure on the TV watching him with a smirk. The machine turned off on its own, leaving the room dark. Peter continued down from his bedroom, walking into the Stark Tower living room and sniffing. He walked into the kitchen and looked around, finding that there was no one there. He took a few steps further into the kitchen, checking the oven, microwave, and toaster, but finding nothing.
And then there was an explosion.
Peter's first instinct was to run to the lab, but he remembered that his Dad was on the lower levels of the tower. The only people up here on the highest floors were him and… and…
Peter dashed down the hallway, taking the emergency stairs to the floor second from the top. He ran into the bedroom part of the floor and flung open one of the doors. This… this was the room of his infant twin cousins. He was supposed to be babysitting them, but Clint and Natasha had put them to sleep before they'd left. From there, Peter had told JARVIS to alert him whenever the twins awoke. They were both wide awake and looking around. They could tell Peter was there when he leaned over the crib to scoop them up.
Peter looked around and noticed that the fire was spreading quickly; there was smoke on the uppermost levels now. He spun a quick web using the web solution that wouldn't dissolve until hours later. He wrapped the two children up tight and made a sling, looking down at their innocent faces and then heading toward the stairs again. He hurried down as fast as possible, but only managed to make it down about sixteen floors before the fire stopped him. He looked for a way out, any way out.
Finding no way else down, Peter ran toward the elevator. It hadn't been engulfed in flames yet meaning the cables that carried it up and down should still work. He got and pressed the button for the lobby. The elevator started down.
The elevator had seemed like a good idea at first, but then the floor beneath him started to get hot. It was then that Peter realized that not one, but two fires had been set in the building. Another sudden explosion that rocked the elevator signaled that there may be a third. Peter held tightly to the two kids, mashing the emergency stop button as the elevator came to a halt. He pried the doors open, a task that left his nails bloody as it hadn't been easy. He had been lucky the door had been in front of a different one.
He had been unlucky that the first thing that barreled into his face was a plume of smoke. He covered the children as best as possible, not wanting them to inhale the dangerous carbon dioxide. He ran through the burning floor, searching for a way out. He would try the stairs, but the path was blocked by support beams and debris. The elevator was no good either. He would have to try something else.
He had been standing in one place too long, for the children started to cry. They were coughing as well, meaning they were beginning to breathe in the smoke. Peter ducked down to the floor, crawling forward and keeping a tight hold on the two infants. He looked this way and that, searching for a way out. He finally spotted one when he saw the window.
The web shooters were growing hot, and Peter quickly wrenched them from his wrist, throwing them as far as possible as they suddenly exploded. The solution he'd come up with was highly flammable when in its liquid state, and just having them on his arms could have been deadly. He'd been lucky he remembered to pull them off, though now his fingers were burned terribly. He coughed, not enough air in his lungs, and went toward the windows which had been covered in dust.
He looked out and noticed that he was only a few floors from the bottom. A few being about ten or twelve. There were cars parked in the street below him along with fire trucks. He could just barely make out the figures of his family below, looking up at the building with expressions he couldn't read. He knocked on the glass and stood, keeping the children low. They stopped crying briefly when he stood, wondering what he'd planned to do next.
Peter knew what he had to do. He'd survived falling from about six stories up, what's ten or twelve? He pulled off his jacket and then his spider man top, wrapping the two infants in the fabric and covering their faces slightly before getting a running start. As he ran, memories flashed before his eyes, and Peter made the realization a little too late that he wasn't going to survive this jump, that the faces of his cousins would be the last he saw.
He wasn't sad about though, oh no. He was glad he'd manage to save two lives even though it meant giving up his.
He saved two lives for the price of one, his. The commercial briefly flickered in his mind, and he found it ironic how it had referred to him perfectly.
He broke through the glass of the window, shattering it even though a few rather large pieces got imbedded in his shoulder. He curled tightly around the two children, not letting them go for an instant. Tears streaked down his face, as he could sense the ground getting closer and closer. It wasn't long before—
CRASH!
The Avengers rushed over to find out what exactly had fallen out of the building. They had seen the glass shatter but hadn't been sure what shattered it. Not until they saw what had landed on the car. Not until they heard two children crying and the sound of bones breaking. Not until they smelled the blood, thick and coppery in the air. No, they hadn't been sure until they crowded around the car, tears springing up in all of their eyes instantly.
Not until they saw Peter dead and smiling, the two infant children wailing away because they knew something was wrong.
"Peter—!" Tony shouted, frozen stock still even as Clint and Natasha removed their children from the dead boy's arms.
Steve was in panic mode, picking Peter up and cradling him close like he had when he was a child, babbling on about how this couldn't have happened, this hadn't just happened, Peter wasn't dead, his baby boy just couldn't be dead.
But he was. Peter was dead. He'd died saving the lives of two people he loved.
He'd saved two people by dying.
Two lives for the price of one.