He shudders a little at the hug, some part of this stupid body that isn't his anymore feeling an echo of trapped no too close, but he rides it out and leans into Steve, instead. Says a silent fuck you to feelings that don't actually belong to him, but the stupid other voices in what used to be his head. He leans his head in and wraps an arm around Steve and tries not to cry.

"If all this is true," he says into Steve's shoulder, "then this world is all illusion. And everything I remember as being my life never happened. My brother ain't my brother. My daughter isn't mine, my sister. My wife isn't-- she's going to disappear, at the end of this, just like you. Like me, maybe." How do you cope with learning you're the fictional persona a monster gave to a mind it didn't want to defeat it? Most of the others don't have to deal with this, because the other Voidtreckers don't disassociate as a reflexive defense mechanism.