I may or may not be (aka, am definitely, 100%) crying as I write this 😭😭😭😭😭. Our beloved Tony does not survive the endgame, and after seeing his death, I’m not sure i did either. Shall we observe a moment of silence for our OG Avenger?
*Throws away giant pile of teary tissues* Whew, okay. Here we go. So, after Infinity War, Tony is floating around in space with no food, barely any oxygen, and is on the brink of death until Captain Marvel sees the ship and lands it on Earth. With a second chance at life, Tony throws up two giant middle fingers to the Avengers and spends the next five years living in the woods with Pepper and his daughter (!!!!!), Morgan.
But when the gang tracks him down and tells him there might be a way to reverse the snap and defeat Thanos, Tony being Tony, gets on board he gets on board and uses his skills to create a time travel GPS, allowing them to go back to specific moments in time to steal the Stones. He even creates a new Iron Man-esque Gauntlet to hold them.
Then, towards the end of the battle, Thanos gets his hands on the Stones and is about to snap THE REST of the population out of existence, until Tony pulls some Dora the Explorer shit and swipes it away from him. He puts it on, snaps his fingers, and Thanos and all of his ugly space goons turn to dust. You’d think that be a good thing, right? BUT NO! Remember how I said Hulk had to wear the Gauntlet because he was the only one that could survive? WELLLLL, the Stones’ powers were too strong for Tony to survive. He dies an extremely heroic death, after Pepper, Rhodey, and Peter Parker say their goodbyes.
Look, don’t get me wrong. I am DEVASTATED. But, remember how Doctor Strange said that there was only one in, like, one trillion ways for them to win? This was it. And, at least he had the chance to marry Pepper and have a kid, who he knows will be safe even after he’s gone. Oh! And, he even had a mini-reunion with his dad when he went back in time. Not to mention, Iron Man was the first installment in the MCU, so it’s poetically full circle. Still, I’m not sure my tear ducts will ever recover.