Resistant • Jonathan Kent

vii. Man of Steel

"What is this?" Tiana asked, storming into the locker room and throwing an envelope angrily down onto the coach's desk.

Coach Bridge picked up the envelope and opened it again, flipping the notice open as he read it. "This is the result of your actions against Marcus Renford, the Star City Eagles player." He said and he held up the notice of suspension for her. "I would imagine that you know what a suspension is already, yes?"

"How is this fair? I am one of the best players you guys have got and as soon as I lose my temper once, I'm off the team?" She shook her head. "How is that even remotely fair?"

"It was either you being banned from playing baseball or, you being expelled from Smallville High entirely." Coach Bridge replied evenly and Tiana was staring at him, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"Did you... Did you even try to fight this on my behalf, Coach? It is not fair to me, or on this team, or even on the school." Tiana said and Coach Bridge sighed.

"I'm sorry, Tiana. I tried as hard as I could, I called all the different schools around to see if any of them had positions open. But the rest of them already had their rosters filled out, so, I am really sorry." He said and she looked at him, before she nodded.

Tiana swallowed the harsh and painful emotions that threatened to choke her, as she was looking at him. "Well, at least I got to help with the finals." She said as she felt her hands vibrating, before she quickly was jamming them into her pockets. "Do I... Do I have to hand in my uniform?" She asked and her voice was catching on the words, as her emotions rose to the surface.

"Eventually." Coach Bridge replied and Tiana was turning around, shaking as she walked out of the office and despite him calling after her, Tiana was running down the hallway.

Tiana saw that Jon was angrily storming away from Sarah and Tiana sighed, before she knocked on Sarah's locker.

Sarah jumped at her sudden appearance and Tiana glanced at her quickly, before she was crossing her arms and Sarah sighed at the sight of her. "So. What the hell did you do, Cushing, to piss the calm one off?" Tiana wondered and Sarah groaned.

"I was asking... Well more so, accusing him of lying to me. About where Jordan is, today and why Tag Harris insisted that Jordan was the cause of his powers and I just ended up angering Jon instead. I didn't notice that he had broken his wrist, so, I just kept angrily snapping at him about Jordan. Well, until he got sick of it and stormed off." Sarah explained quickly as Tiana stared at her, before she was looking after Jon.

"Well... Way to show preferential treatment." Tiana noted bluntly to her friend. Tiana unfortunately, she was fully aware of her own tendency to prefer Jon's company over Jordan's.

Which she often justified to herself, by seeing that Lois and Clark clearly focused more on Jordan than they did on Jon. But she knew that it wasn't really like that, she was just a hypocrite for calling out Sarah as one herself. But Sarah didn't know that.

"Oh come on, Tiana. What's really so wrong with preferring one brother to the other?" Sarah asked sharply and Tiana was staring at her, very briefly trying to figure out a response to it.

"It isn't so bad for your side of things at the moment. Well... Unless, you are deliberately ignoring serious injuries on the other brother that you are actually speaking with about his twin." Tiana was tapping her arm and Sarah sighed quietly. "I will talk to him, I found out that I have to figure out another after-school activity anyways."

"But... I thought that you were on the baseball team?" Sarah asked and Tiana held up the notice, that said that Tiana had been banned from the baseball team. "Oh, that must suck."