It can be said that Tony Stark evolved to best fit into his environment. He didn't dwell on past mistakes; he moved on, he fixed things, just like the mechanic he was.
After he was trapped in the Afghanistan cave with no way of finding him, he added a GPS to Spider-Man's suit.
After he almost froze in the snow after crashing in Tennessee during the whole Mandarin thing, he added a heater to Spidey's suit.
After his cannons didn't work against Hulk when Wanda brainwashed him, he upgraded to bigger nanite cannons.
After Ant-Man damaged his suit by sliding in between the armor plating in the airport battle in Leipzig, he upgraded to nanotechnology.
After he couldn't catch up to Cap's plane escaping with Bucky in Leipzig, he added more foot thrusters.
After Rhodey fell without protection and became paralyzed, he added a parachute to Spidey's suit.
After his suit became unstable while trying to escape the Mandarin, he added flight stabilizers to the nanite suit.
After he had trouble with his aim in Siberia fighting against Cap, he added heat-seeking missiles.
And, after he lost against Cap in hand to hand combat in Siberia, he got better.
He evolved.
However, as Tony sat up from the cold, hard ground of Titan, clutching the remains of the boy he had begun to think of as his son, he doubted all this. After all, what was the point of evolving if you didn't get better? And maybe he had gotten better, but it wasn't enough.
Wasn't enough to save Peter.
The wind picked up and swirled dust around in circles, and in it, Tony believed that he could perhaps see Peter's smile in there- if he just looked closely enough.
And with that, his resolve hardened, and he stood up, stumbling a bit from the excruciating stab wound in his side, but never wavering. He would get Peter back.
Whatever it takes.
