Bruce has a fraction of a split second to realize this after the magic strikes out and rolls over his skin. He is pulled out and displaced, suddenly feeling the air on his bare hands and exposed face. And then the sound and noise of the entire world crashes down, sending him to his knees. His pained gasp is lost in the cacophony, drowned out by sirens and rainstorms, music and birdsong, whispers and cries. The hands clapped over his ears do nothing to block out the noise.
Red creeps along the back of his eyelids, a mounting heat. The sheer amount of stimulus tears across his nerves, every sensory neuron set alight with more information that he knows what to do with. Bruce, commanding all of Clark’s senses and none of his rein. It crests like a wave and he doesn’t know how to make it stop—
“Bruce,” he hears someone whisper, hears it repeated a thousand times over around the world. A hand lands on his shoulder, but Bruce doesn’t move for the fear of slipping up with his strength.
“—hear me?” The hand grasps him tight, a firm pressure that he can feel in far more detail than he thought possible. The voice is familiar, made foreign by the fact that it’s not coming from him. “Listen to me. Can you do that?”
He can. He listens. It’s easy, almost natural, how he gravitates towards that voice like a star in orbit. It fills his ears like a solid presence, a veil that reduces everything else to a hush. And along with the voice; the sound of a beating heart. Bruce hasn’t heard a heart beat this way before, but it’s obvious that this body has. This body remembers that familiar rhythm and its soothing cadence of muscle and blood.
Once he’s sure the heat won’t spill from his eyes, he blinks them open. Batman, or the visual of him, stares back at Bruce. Clark in Bruce’s suit and his skin.
“There you are,” Clark says, and it’s strange to hear Clark’s inflections in the tone of Bruce’s voice. “You okay?”
Bruce manages a nod. He looks at himself—at Clark, and tries not to look through him. Cartilage and fascia isn’t a reassuring sight.
“Sitrep,” Bruce demands, resisting the urge to cringe at the unfamiliar voice rumbling in his throat. Hopefully this condition is easily reversible. But for the time being, at least Clark's suit is comfortable.
