No, I just switched the rails and prayed.

[ Is that any better? To have changed things not knowing, hoping? Hoping your read on a man would lead him, everything else being good, to sacrifice himself for your chosen reality? ]

One of the possible outcomes determined in the last few minutes of that pathway, if he didn't make the choice he did, was the total, bloody annihilation of the overwhelming majority of Earth's population by Thanos' army before he used the stones to reinstate his work on the rest of the universe. I won't regale you with how many times I lived and didn't live to see that one.

[ The anger in it is sudden and vicious, and extremely unfair. He clocks it too late, twists away to shove thumb and fingers up against his eyes, teeth grit against his frustration with himself, against the outpouring of things usually kept neatly stored and shelved way back somewhere he doesn't have to hear them. ]

Sorry. I'm sorry, I'm— I know. I know.

[ He did what he had to do. Made a decision, fought in a war, hopeful soldier, good at this job. Saved more than they lost. He knows. ]