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You can clear coat bare metal, it just won’t adhere particularly well, so will look pretty tatty pretty quickly. Steel will still get rust worms under 2k clear eventually. Aluminium will likely oxidise.
An initial coat of epoxy primer is what actually sticks to the metal substrate, and the base and clear coat just adhere to the primer, so without the primer, you don’t really get very good adhesion. Primer is the layer of paint that seals the substrate, and protects it from corrosion..... the base coat colour on top of that has no protective aspects, and the clear coat on top of the base colour only really protects the underlying base coat colours - the initial coat of primer is what protects the frame from corrosion, so any finish that doesn’t have an initial coat of epoxy primer will never be particularly hard wearing.
You can get special 2k lacquer that is designed for direct adhesion to bare metal, but it’s still not that great.
Clear Powdercoat is your best bet, but even that doesn’t have great longevity.
Clear coat over bare metal is fine for a lot of objects that don’t really get exposed to the elements (furniture etc), but not so great for a bike that actually gets real world use in all weather conditions.