Ko-fi thank-you sentences for @ratherbeme; omega!Clark and hungry!Kon.
Clark rips out a few more generators, freezes a few more than that, and keeps thinking the whole time. This is too obvious, something in the back of his head thinks. Too obvious, too big and flashy and messy, too . . .
There is absolutely about to be another problem here, Clark realizes with the benefit of hard-earned experience.
“Superboy,” he says. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Keep evacuating the civilians, but keep your guard up.”
“Yes, sir,” Kon says exactly the same way he said it before, tone for tone and beat for beat. He doesn’t ask for details. Clark–it’s convenient not to have to explain, technically, but . . .
He wishes the kid would ask for details. Just . . . any time. Ever. Also, sometimes the details might be necessary, depending who he’s in the field with.
Then again, for all Clark knows, Kon asks everyone else he works with for those, and it’s just him he never says more than the bare minimum to.
He really needs to stop dwelling on this. Especially right now, with people in danger. Kon’s cleared out the immediate area pretty efficiently, and Clark can only hear a few more heartbeats and bodies in it, but there’s still people in the blast radius and still work to do. If they’re lucky, there won’t be a blast to escape, but that’s only if they’re lucky. At this point, Clark knows the other shoe is going to drop before this is over, and–
Ah, he has time to think in the instant between spotting the bombs concealed in the ceiling support beams and the bombs concealed in the ceiling support beams going off.
That’d be that other shoe, then.
Clark doesn’t have time to stop the crumbling ceiling and couldn’t catch all of it even if he did–it’s going to come down in pieces, he can already tell–but Kon’s cleared out almost all the civilians, so if he just–
The ceiling stops collapsing, looking like a frozen jigsaw puzzle, and for a moment Clark doesn’t understand. Then he jerks his head around and finds Kon with both hands slammed up against the far wall, a pair of terrified civilians crouched underneath him and his shoulders trembling as he holds up the whole damn ceiling and probably the whole damn building with his TTK, down to the last piece.
Ah, Clark thinks, and then tears his way through the rest of the plant, grabbing every single heartbeat left in the place and getting them all out. He can hear Kon’s ragged breathing, and wants to say something to him but doesn’t want to distract him either. The TTK takes focus, and interrupting it doesn’t always end well.
Usually doesn’t, in Clark’s experience.
And he doubts Kon wants to hear him fussing right now either way, considering.
So Clark clears out every single heartbeat, double-checks with a sweep of X-ray vision, and then stops beside Kon.
“Kon,” he says. Kon grunts. “Everyone’s out. You can let it come down.”
“Yessir,” Kon croaks, and then he does that. He does that very, very slowly. He doesn’t just let go of everything at once and let the building cave in on itself; he sets it all down, piece by piece. It’s the slowest collapse Clark’s ever seen, even counting his perception when he’s at his fastest.
He resists the urge to lay a hand on Kon’s back or shoulder, because again, he doesn’t want to distract the kid. He just watches, very carefully, and keeps an ear out just in case he somehow missed someone or in case someone tries to approach.
Then Kon sets down the last pieces of the building and he collapses right where he stands. Clark catches him, obviously, and scoops him up into his arms. Kon doesn’t move or make a sound; just breathes raggedly into his neck.
“Good job, kid,” Clark murmurs. Kon still doesn’t move or make a sound, but his breathing gets a little more uneven. Clark’s chest aches, both from wanting to scent the kid and wanting to feed him and just wanting to goddamn hug him.
He’d say at least Kon was letting him hold him right now, but he doesn’t even know if the kid’s got the strength to support himself after that display. The TTK really takes it out of him sometimes, and with something that big . . .
Clark’s chest aches a little more, and he holds himself back from nuzzling Kon or fussing over him while the kid’s too out of it to pull back from him if he doesn’t want the attention. If he doesn’t want–
Clark shoves aside his own issues, because they’re irrelevant here, and lifts off the ground with Kon in his arms to fly up out of the collapsed remains of the plant.
