We ranked each hero’s last words in Avengers: Infinity War (so get the tissues)

Marvel Studios’ AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR..L to R: Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Wong (Benedict Wong)..Photo: Film Frame..©Marvel Studios 2018

12. Doctor Strange

“Tony. There was no other way.” Okay, now the last words are getting a little sadder. We haven’t had to wipe away any tears yet. However, there is a sense of helplessness behind Doctor Strange’s last words.

He goes through most of the movie protecting the Time Stone, and he even endures some torture because of it. After previewing every imaginable outcome in the heroes’ fight against Thanos, Strange, unfortunately, realizes that there is only one way to ultimately defeat Thanos.

We can assume that part of that potential outcome either included giving up the Time Stone or saving Tony Stark’s life from being dusted. Out of the 14,000,603 future outcomes Strange taps into, we’d guess that Thanos likely succeeded in retrieving the Time Stone more than once— just like we can guess that Tony survived the dusting more than once.

If there’s only one potential outcome where the Avengers and company win and reverse the snap, we can also assume that a rare extenuating variable also relies on their success — such as Tony Stark living his unfortunate excursion back to Earth in the Benatar. Regardless of the latent variable, we just hope that Tony survives longer than his borrowed time earned from surviving the snap.