[ A part of that not-judging is accepting Peter might not be willing or able to let himself break down in front of someone else. Ben knows he is still a relative stranger, and hell, letting other people see him vulnerable has never really been his own strong suit. So he gets it, and doesn't push any more, when Peter keeps white-knuckling it for the most part. He'd said what he wanted to say, put it out there, and hopefully Peter will remember his words if there's ever a crisis in the future. That's the best Ben can hope to do.

He gives a small, crooked smile at Peter's joke, nodding his agreement. ]

We really do.

[ Ben thinks that, perhaps, a distraction of some kind is in order, to cheer Peter up. But not just yet. Not until he has a little more clarity on how such a shitty thing had happened to his new friend. Not the first time, but just now - the reminder of it. ]

I promise I'm not just asking this to be a dick, but - those people you saw over there, were they people you knew, or just - random strangers?

[ Whatever had caused this illusion must have done it deliberately to hurt Peter. There is no other explanation that isn't impossibly convoluted. What Ben doesn't know is whether it had been working with knowledge outside Peter - if that had happened to half the life forms in the universe, a lot of other people would have seen just what it looked like for someone to dissolve like that - or whether it had been reading his mind, for the faces of loved ones, and that was how it had also found out about the disintegrating. It seems relevant, to know which is the truth. ]