"...What does it say about me that I'd pull the trigger?" If it was Pepper, if it was Rhodey, if it was Bruce? He'd hate himself forever. He'd become a miserable, surly drunk afterward but-

One life verses half the universe. Half of all sentient life, a number too large to get around no matter how he tried to run the math. Half of all life- Peter, Happy, May. The world he fought so hard to save. That he tried so hard t protect. He'd do it. Perhaps it made him the heartless bastard people assumed him to be. What was one more life on his hands? Needs of the many outweighing his need to have someone, anyone, that loved him. That cared. That mattered. He'd had to cut his own heart out before.

"Strange gave up the stone to spare me." He muttered, eyes dropping closed. "It was- we fought. Gave you as much time as we could. He threw a moon at me."

Which was wild and he still had nightmares about space, again, just in a brand new flavor of awful. Fun times. "Shuri? She's brilliant. Helped with the bleeding edge armor. I probably could've cracked nanotech in...five years, if I'm being very generous, but she's something else- fuck I hope she's alright. We might actually be able to manage to fix this if she's still alive."

Young. So fucking young and she'd already lost so much-

Tony knew how that was to some extent. Knew how it could drive a mind to distraction, to working every possible angle.