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-When you can do the things i can but you don't, then the bad things happen... They happen because of you.
Tony Stark is not a god. He is not a warrior, a professional assassin, a super sodier or any of the like. He is a simple civilian playing superhero, so when the rest of Peter's ashes are carried by the wind he doesn't stand, ready to come home and prepare to fight. He doesn't suit up, he doesn't look at the other survivor (the bald blue woman: was her name Nebula?) to find another plan.
-When you can do the things i can but you don't, then the bad things happen... They happen because of you.
There he was: short hair brushed back, a stupid pizza shirt with some cheap worn out hoodie and this sad look on his face. He wanted to stick to the ground, wear that horrible onesie with glued swim goggles and do his homework.
If Tony never went inside that tiny apartment on Queens looking for a Spiderboy to bring into his stupid cat fight in Germany, Peter... Peter would be dead still. The difference is that... Is that if Tony have never gotten into that apartment, he would have never met him, and his death wouldn't be as painful as it is right now.
-When you can do the things i can but you don't, then the bad things happen... They happen because of you.
Tony Stark was a man that new well enough about loss and as soon as he moved to sit on that kid's bed, he new that he was responsible for him already. That's why, later on his lab, he threw the first schematics for the spidersuit in the trash and started a whole new project that involved way more safety and way less weapons.
He asks F.R.I.D.A.Y. to list the most important things to put into that suit: a pair of web wings, a parachute, a heater, a reconnaissance drone, upgraded eye lenses, a utility belt, a communication system, a GPS tracking system, Baby Monitor Protocol and even an A.I. (initially locked with the Training Wheels Protocol, just so he learns how to properly use it with the time). When Tony brings Peter back from Germany, he decides that that's the most he wants from that kid and they'll never cross paths again, but as soon as Spiderman starts playing bird-whisperer to fight some dude named Vulture, he cames back again into the scene, because Peter is just a kid. His biggest muscles are the size of an orange and, most important than that, Peter is his responsibility. His kid to take care of.
So once again, Tony Stark comes back home and asks F.R.I.D.A.Y. to make a larger list of what Peter needs in a suit, so he can make it better and keep him as protected as one powered vigilante teenager can possibly be.
-When you can do the things i can but you don't, then the bad things happen... They happen because of you.
Peter Parker is an hyperactive annoying kid, but he also happens to be the sweetest and brightest, and that's why Tony ends up keeping him close; pop culture references and all.
That's why he follows a alien ship into space, even when it's a combination of his worst fears: Peter is stuck in it and choking with the lack of oxygen. That's why he bring his dad-act up once he realizes that Peter is still there. That's why when Peter Quill holds Peter at gun-point he brings a giant alien to the floor and puts a cannon on his face.
It's because that's his kid and he loves him. He'll face his worst fears for him and even start acting like a responsible middle-aged dad. He's the reason why Tony tells Pepper that having a kid felt so real and even ask her to have one of their own.
That's why he can't bring himself to be a hero right now. On his knees in the dirt, holding close to his face the hand with Peter's ashes, Tony Stark is nothing but human.
And human means weak, fragile, small, full of pain and suffering.
Once again, he proves himself wrong: until his parents died, he used to think that the worst pain he ever felt was that one from when Howard said that his first robot was ridiculous and useless. But then, the kidnapping in the desert happened; he had a hole on his chest and a car battery attached to it and to get out, he had to see his friend die. That was until Obadiah. And then getting in and out of a alien wormhole. And then until being exploded in his own home and having extremis fuck with Pepper. And then the betrayal of pretty much all of his friends.
He kept thinking "this is the worst something can get" until life proved him wrong and came back with more.
But this...
Now this is the worst.
The lack of movement of his body, the shock, was there to compensate the chaos going on on his mind.
Now this... This is the fucking worst.
Tony Stark, the human, zoned out for what felt like centuries. He had no ideia how long it took and there was no one to count the time. When he came back though... He got up and wiped away the tears from his face with the clean hand.
Now he was going to be someone's worst.