"Fuck!" Harley slammed her skate down on the bench beside her in frustration. "That bitch can suck my fucking dick."

Pam let her eyes wander to her competitor. The girl's blonde bangs stuck out of her ponytail, curling slightly over her forehead. The ponytail itself wasn't as tight as Pamela's was. It was sloppy, flyaways escaping every opportunity they saw. Pamela nearly scoffed aloud just looking at her. Though, she did appear decidedly more comfortable than Pamela was. Harley probably didn't have a headache every time she got off the ice. But pain is a natural part of figure skating. At least, that's what Pamela's coach had always taught her.

Her coach was squeezing her leg now, willing her to focus on more important things than Harleen Quinzel's infamously shitty attitude. She was the type to always believe she got a raw deal. Maybe she did, Pamela didn't know. She wasn't a judge. Harley skated with a lot of power. She could consistently land the triple axel, that made her special. Her strength was in her jumps. But she was graceless otherwise. The goal of figure skating was to make the impossible look effortless, and the ice look like water only you can glide upon. Harley didn't…glide. She skated like a gymnast. Perhaps that was the tradeoff for jumping like one too.

"That bitch" Harley had been referring to was named Selina Kyle, and she'd just passed Harley on the leaderboard, knocking the blonde into the silver medal position for the time being. Pamela was confident it would be the bronze after she bowed for the judges.

For the first time in Olympic history, the American women were projected to go 1, 2, 3 in the singles event. And as of this moment, with one more skater to go, it looked like they were about to pull it off. The experts had said it would be Selina at the top of the podium, Harley second, and that Pamela would win the bronze. But Pamela didn't want the bronze, she wanted the gold, and she was presently in the perfect position to win it. Harley had badly bobbled a landing on her second axle, going as far as to put her hand down on the ice, which counted as a fall, and earned her an entire point in deductions. Selina, meanwhile, had made the incredibly uncharacteristic error of dropping a full rotation on her toe loop, making what was supposed to be a triple only a double.

"Skate how you're supposed to and the gold is yours," Woodrue murmured. "At this point, the bronze would be a disappointment. Don't fuck this up for us."

For me, Pamela thought as she got to her feet. The last skater on the ice.

Harley didn't truly think Selina was a bitch. Actually, the three of them were rather good friends. They'd all roomed together on the last world cup circuit. Harley was just competitive, they all were. But it didn't surprise Pam when Harley reached for her hand when she walked passed, squeezing it as she looked up with those big blue eyes and said, her voice carrying every ounce of sincerity a human could possess, "Break a leg, Red."

Pam offered a smile and a soft squeeze in return. "USA."

Getting to her feet now, Harley grinned, leaning forward to kiss Pam on the cheek. Pam felt a heat spread below her skin, moving from her cheek down into her chest, taking root there and spreading from her toes to her fingertips. With a giggle, Harley plopped back down on the bench, and Pam could feel her eyes still fixed on her back(side?) as she walked away.

"The next competitor represents the United States of America. Pamela Isley."

Pam heard her name echo in the arena over the loud speaker. With a practiced calm, she slipped the covers off her skates and stepped onto the ice. The crowd cheered and she skated to the center, feeling her heartbeat quicken in her chest.

This was it. Just 4 minutes, 30 seconds, and a routine she could do in her sleep separated her from a gold medal.

"Don't fuck this up, Pamela." She whispered to herself, making sure to hide her mouth from the television cameras. "You're the best skater in the world."

Then her music started, and it was simply do or die.

Pamela had fallen many times in her life. She fell every day at practice, it was just part of the sport. She even occasionally fell in competitions.

This time, though…this was different.

She knew as soon as the edge of her blade hit the ice.

That's when her ankle buckled. And when she heard the crowd gasp with one collective breath, that's when she knew it hadn't just buckled, it had broken.

Pamela lay on the ice for what felt like hours (though she would later learn it was only seconds) waiting for the medical staff to realize she wouldn't be getting up from this one. Her ankle was bent at nearly a right angle, what the fuck was the matter with them? But, as Pamela looked, she realized the obvious broken bone wasn't the only problem with this picture.

Her skate was untied.

Her Olympic dreams had crashed and burned thanks to a fuckin shoelace.

Break a leg…

How about an ankle, Harley?