Tony spends night after night in the lab
Check, double-check, triple check the suits.
Parachute? (Rhodey, Pepper.)
Check.
Oxygen? (The silence of space.)
Check.
Heater? (The cold, the cold, the bone chilling cold.)
Check.
Peter shouldn’t have come. Peter should stay safe, friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, giving old ladies directions and preventing muggings and getting cats down out of trees. But Peter’s in Space, and they can’t go back.
How many timelines do we win?
One.
One chance for Peter and Pepper and Rhodey and everyone he cares about. He can do this. He’s always thrived on this - the rush of impossible and the sunrise smugness of defying it. They can do this.
And they nearly do - Peter, brave Peter, he nearly has the gauntlet off but then Starlord snaps and it all goes to hell.
Thanos is gone, off to destroy the universe, and all Stephen does is look at him with sorrowful eyes. “We’re in the endgame now.”
“Mister Stark? I don’t feel so good.”
And the child he’s just realising he has is now ash on his fingertips.
He wants to kill Thanos with his bare hands. He wants to scream, to cry, to bring Peter back and hug him and keep him far from harm.
The ash is cold on his fingertips.