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It's the kryptonite that does it.
Clark's been exposed to it before, obviously. He's died from it before, even if it wasn't technically the kryptonite that carved the actual hole through his chest. But that was a single piece, a high concentration in one place, and he hadn't actually been near it for that long. A minute, while Bruce was threatening him with it; another minute once he'd picked it up again. He'd still had enough flight, enough strength, to take down Doomsday. He could still hold himself together, then—and once he'd been dead, everything had dried out and stiffened up, ossified. Nothing had gone wrong, that time.
This time is different.
There's a lot more of it, some kind of secret stash Luthor was keeping up his sleeve, and he might be in prison, but there are plenty of people who worked for him who aren't. Clark's locked in with it, chained up, unable to move away from it, and it's—hours, it must be hours. It feels like forever, hanging there shaking, every fragment of concentration he has left turned toward the task of holding it tight, refusing to let it get away from him.
Even after the rest of the League has found him, freed him, and the kryptonite's locked away behind lead, it's—it took too much out of him. He doesn't have enough left.
He can't fly. Can't spare the focus, when it's taking everything he has just to stay upright, just to keep himself the right shape.
None of them know that, obviously. They think the kryptonite took the power itself, or at least reduced it to next to nothing. He doesn't correct them.
Bruce drives him back to the Hall in the Batmobile, and doesn't try to talk to him. He is, distantly, grateful for that; he sits there, fists clenched, driving his nails into his palms, forcing himself to pay attention. Forcing himself to concentrate.
He can't lose it now. He can't.
He isn't physically injured—even if he had been, by now it would've healed. He can avoid any real examination. He just needs rest, some sunlight. He says that about fifteen times, and if his smile doesn't look right on his face, well, nobody calls him on it.
Then all that's left is the debriefing. He can handle that. Just the debriefing, and then he can go upstairs, lock himself into his room, and let go. It won't matter, then.
He can't really hear any of it, can't listen. He can't spare the attention. He sits there in his seat at the main table, staring at nothing, swallowing over and over, trying to hold himself together. Just a little while longer. One more second, he tells himself, and when that second is over, one more. One more. He can do it for one more second.
There are a lot of one-more-seconds, before the meeting's finally adjourned. But he makes it. It actually takes a moment for him to understand that that's what's happened, that the talking around him is just chatter, nothing official anymore.
He pushes himself to his feet. There's something in front of him; he blinks, and it swims into focus. Diana. Looking at him, fond and concerned. Saying something he can't really follow. Reaching out, like she's going to take his elbow in her hand and squeeze. But he doesn't know what'll happen if she does, whether it's going to be the right texture or density, whether she's going to be able to—feel him.
He stumbles away, bumping his own chair as he goes, skirting carefully around her. The tenor of the sound around him changes, voices rising, but he can't—the debriefing's over, he gets to leave now. He has to leave now.
He's in the hallway. He keeps a hand on the wall, holding himself up, and at least his legs are still solid enough to support his weight. He's fine. He'll be fine, if he can just make it to his suite—
Something's touching him. Gripping him, guiding him away from the wall, and that's not good but he can't figure out what to do about it. God, he's so tired.
"Clark, here," says a voice in his ear.
Bruce.
"No," Clark slurs, but it's too late: Bruce has already helped him across the hall, into the nearest lounge, and he isn't paying enough attention anymore, the structure of his legs weakening. He sinks helplessly, but Bruce was two steps ahead of him, has maneuvered him in front of the sofa.
"What's wrong?" Bruce is saying, level, clipped. "Clark, tell me what's wrong. Diana can carry you to the medical wing if—"
"No," Clark manages again, louder this time. "I'm fine."
"Clark—"
"I'm fine. I'm not hurt. I need—I just need to rest." Clark shakes his head; too much, too loose on his neck, shit shit shit. "I just need to rest, Bruce, please. Go away. Go away, shut the door. Don't let anybody in. Don't let anybody see."
"Clark," Bruce says.
"Please—"
Bruce does it.
Half of it, anyway. He does shut the door, lock it. Clark can hear him, what seems like a thousand miles away, speaking into the League comm in brisk tones: —should be considered off-limits until further notice—
But he doesn't go. He doesn't leave. He shuts the comm off when he's done with it, plucks it out of his ear and sets it down on the coffee table, and then he reaches for Clark.
Clark puts everything he's got into one last effort, a desperate attempt to make sure his shoulder feels the way Bruce is expecting it to, the frantic illusion of solidity briefly reinforced.
But then there's nothing left. He can't hold it together anymore. He's gasping, panicked, digging his nails into the upholstery of the sofa, and Bruce is saying something else, and then—
It must be awful for Bruce, watching it happen. The parts Clark forced into some semblance of stability are the first to go, the hardest to hold onto, giving way the instant Clark's concentration is gone; to Bruce, it must look like all Clark's bones are melting at once. And then the rest of him is following, as if he's turning to rubber, deflating, dissolving. It must be horrifying.
But even knowing what Bruce must be seeing, what Bruce must be thinking, isn't enough anymore. Clark can't stop it now.
He lets go, helpless. And then it's just him, in a pile on the floor, the empty suit slithering down behind him. He tries to gather himself together a little bit, draws his central mass in close even when it wants to spill out in a loose blot—loops all his long suckered arms around and over each other in anxious circles. He's gone the color of the rug, he knows he has, stippling his surface to match the texture, a reflexive urge to try to hide even though it's utterly pointless.
He makes a stupid scared noise, a high-pitched warble that isn't going to help at all, and aims his eyes up. All of them.
Sure enough, Bruce is staring at him. His face is blank, pale, his mouth half-open, a slack sort of shock Clark's never seen on him before. He isn't breathing, isn't moving.
And then he blinks, once and then again, and wets his lips. "Clark," he says slowly.
Clark doesn't know what to do, except—maybe—
He lets his surface change, a wash of muted green chasing the color of the rug from the center of him and radially outward, a pulse along the lengths of all his arms.
"Green," Bruce says, under his breath. "Which means—yes?"
Green.
"And you really aren't hurt."
Red.
"I'll assume that's a no," Bruce says, and then clears his throat. "Do you—need anything, like this? Food, water. A tank, Christ—"
Clark shrivels up a little, reflexive, drawing in on himself, making sure not even a single one of his arms is touching so much as the toe of Bruce's shoe.
"No," Bruce says instantly, and then he moves—hesitates, for a long moment, before dropping into a crouch and reaching out with one cautious hand, open palm extended but not quite close enough to touch. "Don't do that. I'm not—" He stops, jaw working, gaze flickering away, and when he looks at Clark again, there's something wry tucked into the corner of his mouth. "I like to be prepared," he murmurs at last. "I'm not good at not knowing what to do."
As if he should've been prepared, could've been prepared, for this. Clark shuts his eyes miserably, and flattens himself a little further against the floor. Maybe if he tries hard enough, he can just sink right through it. That would be great.
"Do you want me to stay?"
Red, Clark tells himself sternly. Red red red red red—
He almost manages it, for a second. But it's harder to lie, like this, when the color of his surface is controlled by reflex, instinct, thought. He can practically feel the green starting to seep through, starting at the thick central axes of his arms and spreading gradually into the webs between them.
He quivers, and curls his arms up, covering himself.
But Bruce doesn't take the excuse that first deliberate blast of red gave him. He's quiet, for a moment. And then he says, "Clark," softly, and this time he does touch: two fingers, that's all, skimming gently along the outer line of the arm Clark spread across half of his eyes. "Clark, it's fine. It's all right. If I didn't want to know the answer, I wouldn't have asked."
Which is—actually probably true, Clark thinks. Bruce has never really shied away from conspicuously avoiding things he doesn't want to deal with.
He allows his arms to relax, to slide down until he's peeking out at Bruce from the gap between two of them.
And Bruce looks—fine, now. Color in his face; warmth, amusement, in his eyes.
He glances away from Clark, surveying the lounge. "Is sunlight still a good idea?"
Green. yes.
The blinds are already up, in here. It's afternoon, and this lounge has huge west-facing windows—which is probably why Bruce dragged him in here, when he thought the only thing wrong with Clark was the after-effects of the kryptonite.
"Can you climb up onto the—"
Clark rotates, and can guess immediately what he means; swarms across the floor, arms drawing him along easily, and up the leg of the sofa he'd been sitting on before, which is squarely drenched in sunlight.
"Well," Bruce murmurs. "That answers that. And you don't need anything else?"
no.
"But you—won't be upset," Bruce says carefully, "if I stay."
Clark squirms, arms tangling. no, he admits.
And something crosses Bruce's face, then, a decision taking shape; he steps forward and seats himself, the middle of the sofa, not touching Clark but nowhere near far away enough to be sure Clark can't touch him.
He reaches out again, an open hand. It's obvious what he wants, even if Clark can't figure out why, and Clark lets one arm arch upward, the curve it makes expanding in slow increments until it's almost fit itself into the shape of Bruce's palm.
And Bruce closes that last minute distance, smooths his hand in a single slow stroke along Clark's arm. "And you're really all right?" he says, hushed.
yes.
"Changing like that, it didn't hurt—"
For crying out loud. no no no.
Bruce laughs, half a breath through his nose. "Fine, fine, no need to shout."
He still hasn't taken his hand away. Clark ripples uncertainly, lets another couple of arms spill up the back of the sofa and come to rest cautiously on Bruce's shoulder. It's going to be too much, too weird; he should've known better than to try it—
Bruce looks at him, an eyebrow half-raised, and doesn't move.
Clark curls one arm tentatively, carefully, around the crook of Bruce's elbow. He's just—he always wants to be anchored to something, instinctive, when he sleeps. The sofa would work fine. But if Bruce really doesn't mind—
"Sure," Bruce says softly. "Sure, of course."
Clark isn't expecting it to last. Bruce will rethink it, surely. Will want to get up, move around, or else he'll find the sensation of Clark's arms, the suckers on the undersides and the way they ripple against his shirt, more disconcerting than he thinks he will.
But Bruce hasn't gone anywhere by the time Clark falls asleep, half Clark's arms curling around his arm and his shoulder, his waist, his knee. He's warm; that's the last thing Clark can remember thinking, a dim vague impression, before the exhaustion wins.
He wakes up slowly.
He's still warm. It feels like it takes a while to crawl from that piece of awareness to the next: he hasn't put himself back together yet. He's warm, and he's all spread out, wrapped comfortably and very firmly around—
around—
around Bruce, oh, god.
Bruce, who's lying back against the arm of the sofa, now, because he must have had to move, trying to accommodate Clark sprawling across his chest. Who's holding very still, taking long, slow, even breaths, while Clark's been blissfully tangling himself around him, rippling in his sleep, squeezing close around his arms, his waist, one thigh.
Clark draws himself clumsily sideways against the back of the couch, trying to curl half his arms in at the same time. Jesus, he was—he had two arms crawling under Bruce's shirt in the small of his back, one sliding up the cuff of Bruce's sleeve and wrapping itself around Bruce's wrist—
The next of Bruce's long, slow, even breaths catches, snags in the back of his throat. Clark winces, contracting, trying to squirm away faster; and Bruce makes a sudden strangled sound and shudders all over.
Clark freezes.
"Clark," Bruce says, strained. He's got a hand up, carefully gripping one of Clark's arms, holding it away from—jesus, away from the shape of his cock in his slacks, unmistakably straining. His gaze is directed firmly toward the ceiling; his face is pink.
The sun's setting. It must have been, jesus, hours. Hours and hours, with Clark plastered all over him like that.
But Clark's better now, Clark's fine. He pulls it together, quick, reassembling himself part of the way, the central mass of him formed mostly into the right outer shape, arms—the normal kind—arranged so as to prop him up on the arm of the sofa to either side of Bruce's head, carefully suspending as much of him as possible above Bruce's body instead of on it. Next he reconstructs the most essential handful of the finicky internal bits that will let him talk.
"Sorry—"
Bruce meets his eyes—which are back in the right places, partway up his reconstructed face, appropriately proportioned. Bruce's expression is wry. "What for," he says, deliberately level, barely even a question.
There's still a few too many arms spread around; Clark can still ripple nervously, which he discovers when he accidentally does it. Bruce traps a groan in the back of his throat, but Clark can still hear it, can still feel the sudden sharp tension in his hips, almost entirely controlled.
Almost.
Jesus. "Bruce, you," Clark manages. "You really—?"
Bruce wets his lips. He's still—very pink. "I take it you're still expecting me to suddenly come to my senses and run out of the room screaming," he says. "But I've had three hours and forty-nine minutes to draw some extremely clear conclusions. One of which I assume you're well aware of."
Clark carefully doesn't look at Bruce's fly, doesn't let even a single arm start optimistically sneaking toward the shape of Bruce's hard cock behind it. "I didn't," he starts, and then stops, trying to figure out what to say, how to say it. How to convey anything close to the utter impossibility of all of this. That Bruce should have wanted him at all, let alone like this, after seeing him this way. "I didn't think you'd ever—I—"
The wryness, the self-aware amusement, drains out of Bruce's face. Without it, he's intent, flushed, serious. He lifts a hand, touches Clark's re-formed cheek and jaw, the face he's familiar with.
And then he skims it down the reshaped line of Clark's throat, chest, waist; the place where the shape of Clark grows undeniably vague again, the color melting into an uncertain pale swirl, Clark's natural texture too-smooth and faintly damp. He finds the base of an arm, without taking his eyes off Clark's face, and Clark can't help it, hitches the round width of it firmly into Bruce's grip. It should be, would be, suggestive, if it weren't for the expression on Bruce's face, the steady searching way he's looking at Clark.
"Anything," he says, very low. "It doesn't matter, as long as it's you. It doesn't matter. I—I—"
Jesus. Clark can't listen to him trying to say it, trying to surrender something that must frighten him just as much as reverting in front of him had frightened Clark, and not kiss him.
It gets away from Clark, inevitably. He doesn't mean to, but it's Bruce, Bruce under him, Bruce's mouth opening for him. He uses his central mass for the big stuff, the torso, the head; but the details need arms. Details like tongues.
He comes apart a little bit, gasping against Bruce's lips—splits without trying to, spilling the sudden extra length of three of the slimmer arms at once into Bruce's mouth because he can't concentrate well enough to keep them moving together, to keep the shape right.
But Bruce doesn't push him off, doesn't spit them out. He brings his hand up again, blindly, gripping what probably feels less like the nape of a neck than it should, and makes a frantic sound in the back of his throat—sucks them deeper into his mouth, swallows the tip of one of them, jesus. Clark shivers all over, the whole surface of him trembling helplessly, and lets himself sink back down, covers Bruce's chest with himself, winds himself around Bruce's ankles, the backs of Bruce's knees, his thighs, his ass—
"Yes," Bruce says, remarkably distinctly given that there's still one slim arm wrapped around his tongue. "Yes, god, please—"
He moves, gropes down with his free hand to find his own belt. But Clark can help him with that, and does: squirms a couple of the larger, thicker arms into the waist of Bruce's slacks and pulls, even as Bruce is fumbling his belt buckle open, and the moment there's enough give, Clark is working the waistband down Bruce's hips with both of them, before wrapping one in a careful coil around Bruce's cock from root to head—suckers facing out, not in, just too-smooth skin.
Bruce cries out, even before Clark has started squeezing, slow and rhythmic and wringing. His hand is still hovering there, suspended, and Clark only grips it by the wrist to move it gently out of the way, but Bruce writhes when he does it, hand slackening blissfully, and okay, Clark's more than willing to hang onto it instead, coil around it and pin it down into the sofa and keep it there.
It's wonderful. Clark can't imagine anything better than getting to do this, watching it, feeling it, as Bruce strains and shudders against him, lets Clark clutch him all over and work his cock in long smooth strokes. He likes it all, everything—Clark filling his mouth, shoving half a dozen arms up his shirt to rub their way along the curves of his ribs, tracing the shape of his ass with a couple more.
Clark isn't even thinking about anything else.
But Bruce comes, a run of stretched-out pulses that rack his whole body, and when it's over, Clark sliding the narrowest arms free of his mouth and running them soothingly over his face, Bruce cracks an eye open and croaks, "Don't be careful with me."
Clark blinks. He's held onto enough of the right shape—it's so much easier now than it was—to make an expression Bruce is going to recognize as bafflement. "Careful with you," he repeats. Bruce just found out he's a space octopus, a space—hexecontapus, and then let Clark shove a bunch of arms in his mouth and pull his clothes off. That's the opposite of Clark being careful with him, in pretty much every possible respect.
Bruce raises an eyebrow. "That was a lot of arms," he agrees, "but it wasn't—whatever else you have. Was it?"
Clark reddens—all over, involuntary, a silent confession: no.
Trust Bruce to come up with a way to talk around the word cock, aware that he probably couldn't trust it to describe the anatomy in question.
"It's pretty weird," Clark blurts, and then grimaces.
And, sure enough, Bruce's mouth slants. "Oh, no," he murmurs. "Not weird. How am I going to cope?"
"Oh, shut up," Clark tells him, and then curls a couple arms around the back of his neck, and draws him up to kiss him some more.
They're going to have to move this sofa out of the lounge, he thinks dimly. He's never going to be able to sit on it again without remembering this.
Or maybe they'll just keep it locked after this, and tell everybody else to use the east lounge.