#when i was handed natasha romanov i got a male fantasy

[timeisacephalopod]

You know, I see a lot of discourse on why femslash is less popular overall and I think some of the reasons that are brought up (misogyny, less female characters, female characters not being just ‘boring’ like male characters, but outright misogynistic tropes, which makes them far harder to build than bland male characters on account of needing to completely remake them rather than just imagine more for them) are valid. I’ve often wondered why I gravitate towards almost exclusively m/m in writing and reading fanfic and considered misogyny, which is the most cited reason for the phenomenon. 

Here’s the thing though- if its original writing my leads are almost always women or female coded, and if they’re not there’s a strict split in genders (unless I’m writing something that has nonbinary characters). When I read original fiction I almost never read stories about men written by men- my entire library is female authors writing female characters. Obviously misogyny and not enjoying lady characters isn’t my problem, so what’s the deal? My proposed reason, or rather a partial reason on account of the reasons for why femslash is less popular depends on individuals and the fandom at large (ie, fandoms with more women characters have more femslash). But I think a lot of it is that there’s not much of a model for female sexuality outside of men. Culturally speaking, we don’t talk about women’s sexuality and when we do its almost never within the context of just women- ie the male gaze. Shit, even lesbian porn is meant for men. We know this, so it doesn’t entirely seem surprising that there’s less femslash because of it.

One might mention that there’s not a huge model for gay men either, but men’s sexuality isn’t exactly something we shy away from. We know how men work, its easy to imagine how they might look together and when all else fails we can stick them into a heteronormative framework (that top/bottom discourse that often falls into thinly veiled misogyny that relegates the smaller therefore more ‘feminine’ one to the ‘bottom’ and therefore submissive role. To be clear penetration is not a form of power or dominance, its just sex. Hop off it). Lesbians face this too, like the weird assumption that femmes only date butches, but its also really difficult to shove someone into heteronormative assumptions when penetration, the biggest part of heteronormative assumptions in sex, is often synthetic. 

All our models for sex and sexuality treat penetration as the ultimate form of sex, and lesbians don’t fit neatly into that narrative. That’s where you get wild assumptions like lesbians using realistic dildos means they’re secretly attracted to men- we as a culture have a very hard time with accepting that women have a sexuality that’s completely independent of men whether or not men are involved. (And to be clear it doesn’t matter how realistic that dildo is, its not a man and never will be. Lesbians are lesbians regardless of what fucking toys they use jfc). I think this plays a large role in how and why fanfiction looks the way it does, just the simple difficulty people have imagining women’s sexuality with each other. Which is a bit upsetting considering most fanfic writers are women, but culturally we don’t give women their own space to express their sexuality either. And if they try we often punish them for it (ie straight women being sluts, lesbians being into men actually, they just haven’t found the right one yet, etc). Then there’s the way women’s love is often written off or ignored, ie. the Gal Pal garbage we see all the time. Women don’t often get the luxury of existing sexually outside of men, and thus we don’t have a lot of models on how to depict women loving women because their romance is written off as friendship, and their sex is written off as secretly for men or experimental.

Point is, women don’t get a place to express their sexuality independent of men pretty much ever, even if they’re lesbians just existing like that. We often do a lot of work to reframe female sexuality as for men, actually, including in instances where lesbian women are having sex with each other for each other. To me, its not entirely surprising that some of that cultural fallout might have landed in fandom spaces too, especially where so many women in canon works are clearly male fantasies (yes, this is a Joss Whedon callout). Once again it results in fans separating out women from male fantasy, which makes them a lot more work than male characters. Which, more than likely, is why you see more femslash in works with more women- there’s a good chance women were involved with the production of those works and suddenly a lot of the work around dealing with female characters disappears. The dynamics come easy and fast because they’re abundant and well written, plus they come with the added benefit of not having to pull a bunch of misogyny or homophobia (lesbophobia specifically) out of the fabric of their creation.

I’ve never seen anyone mention this, and technically it falls into the misogyny explanation, but its a real specific brand of it that’s highly lesbian specific. I think there’s a reasonable chance that this has something to do with less femslash, especially in canons where there are less lady characters or where they’re already flimsy male fantasies. Recreating that into something that doesn’t read like bad mainstream lesbian porn is a lot more work than well written male characters romancing each other, or even taking a couple bland male characters and building them up some more to make them romance each other. But women are almost never just bland, they’re sexy lamps, and that makes giving them sexualities independent of the misogyny they were created into a pain in the ass.

[itsanerdlife]

It’s Complicated 21/25

Pairing: Clint Barton x Fisk Niece!Reader

A/N: Reader is Wilson Fisk’s Niece. I’m tired of the same old villains so keep your eyes peeled for who just might be the one lurking in the dark.

Warning: This is very match and lighter fluid type of burn. Feels of abandonment. Talks of Psychopaths. Overprotective male. Lies. Secrets. Language. Kidnapping. Violence. I think that’s about it.

Sometimes in life there are just certain people worth breaking the rules for. No matter the hell that may rain down. Is it possible to fall in love with someone in just a matter of one conversation? To be utterly and completely obsessed with someone in a matter of weeks? But what if they aren’t who you think they are? What if one day the person you love, they just disappear? Learning to live again is a bitch. Specially just when you think you’re doing fine, he shows up on your doorstep. Wanting to explain his secrets. But now you’ve got your own secrets but do you really ever just get over that type of love? Can you really just move on and pretend it never happened? Even when you’re carrying around proof inside you?

Tag List Is Open

When the elevator announces their arrival, they head into the kitchen. Nat jumps up quickly from the table.

“I swear you get bigger every time we see you.” She gushes, hugging Y/N before she moves Y/N’s belly.

“You know what I’m going to take that as a compliment.” Y/N laughs.

“It means my favorite little man is getting bigger.” Nat coo’s, all soft for her nephew.

“Is it weird seeing Romanov, all soft?” Tony asks looking at Buck.

“Tony I’ll kill you in your sleep.” Nat snaps a glare in his direction. Tony swallows, leaning back slowly.

“We wanted to tell you something.” Clint smiles at her.

“Actually,” her mode shifts just a little chilly towards him “Wanda and I did some shopping for the baby. Let her show you everything.” Nat nods, Wanda hurries out of her seat, she grabs Y/N’s hand. She laughs following Wanda into the living room. “Not you, Barton. We need to talk.” She hisses, her hand on his chest.

“What’s wrong?” He eyes her.

“Y/N sweetie, I need to talk to Clint. We’ll be right there.” Nat calls.

“She’s fine.” Sam calls back, letting him know it wasn’t a rush. Buck sighs, following as Nat grips the front of Clint’s shirt, yanking him after her.

“Easy, Nat.” Clint huffs. When he tugs away, she catches his arm. Shoving him, he turns, his arm snaps back pinned behind him. His cheek against the wall, in a way trapped. “Ah, Nat. Need that arm. Having a baby soon.” He pants softly, wincing at the position his arms in.

“Oh you remember that? You having a baby, a damn good woman?” Her tone pissed. “One who took your stupid ass back and is giving you a family without batting an eye.” She grinds out.

“You’re making valid points here, but not for nearly breaking my arm.” He points out.

“Are you fucking stupid, Barton? Going after Cross? When you know he’s a psycho and weirdly obsessed with Y/N?” She hisses at him.

“Buck, we really need to talk about keeping secrets.” Clint huffs.

“I told you, it was a stupid idea.” Buck shrugs.

“Cross, has a guard on his tab.” Nat lets go, her tone annoyed still. “Maria’s office was raided. Someone’s looking into your girl.” Nat folds her arms over her chest.

“Son of a bitch.” Clint slams his hand against the wall, before pushing off it. “He’s going to plan an escape.” He spins looking at Nat.

“Can’t.” Buck smirks.

“How?” His eyes flick between them.

“I personally put Cross in solitary myself. Sam has a buddy on security, no contact.” Buck nods.

“So who the fuck is looking into her?” Clint scraps his hand down his face.

“No idea.” Nat shakes her head. 

“She’s getting close to being due, Barton.” Buck points out.

“Less than three months.” Clint nods.

“Fury’s put you on early maternity leave. Stick to her like glue.” Nat warns him. “We’ll keep looking.” She nods.

“You don’t think,” Clint pauses “her uncle?” He looks at them.

“I’ll take a visit up there, double check.” Nat assures him.

“Hey.” She appears at the end of the hallway, hands on her hips. “You’re not spilling the secret are you?” She smirks at him.

“Never.” He grins at her.

“Everything okay?” Her head tips looking between them.

“Bad news about Cross, babe.” He sighs, heading for her. “Got caught trying to plan an escape. He’s in solitary. No more interviewing.” He reaches her, brushing her hair back from her face.

“You know, it’s okay. Maybe I should stop till after he’s here. He’s so distracting when I’m trying to be on my A game.” She nods, looking down at her hands on her belly.

“He just needs all the attention.” Nat grins. “He’s like Clint, already.” She laughs.

“So she was right, he’s going to be six foot, blonde and run around the city in tights.” Buck laughs.

“Thin ice already Barnes.” Clint shoots him a glare.

“I heard the word secret.” Nat perks up.

“Like a bloodhound.” Clint laughs.

“Oh I have a good question.” Y/N turns shuffle, running, slightly waddling into the living room. Buck laughs following with them. Clint shakes his head, Nat practically beams.

“If you had to summon Nat, what three things would you use?” She asks, taking a seat again.

“Secrets.” The room replies at the same time. Nat scuffs, rolling her eyes.

“Your baby.” Steve snorts. Nat shrugs, nodding.

“Bucky shirtless.” Wanda snickers, folding baby clothes.

“I’m still on this secret thing.” Nat points out, dropping into a chair.

“We picked a name.” Clint chuckles, taking the seat next to Y/N.

“Tell us.” Wanda claps excitedly, Nat sits up, a faint smile on her lips.

“Well we agreed his last name would be Barton.” Y/N nods, looking over at him. “We haven’t settled on a middle name, yet but.” She nudges him with her shoulder.

“Y/N came up with his first name. We decided on, Nathan.” He nods, looking around. Others are grinning.

“Nathan Barton. Strong name.” Steve smiles, kissing Y/N’s cheek.

“I picked Nathan because it’s the male version of Natasha. We could call him Nate for short.” Y/N smiles at Nat.

“Nat?” Clint smirks at her. She’s pink in the cheeks, her mouth sealed shut, like she was struggling. “Don’t you cry.” He grins. She moves, sucker punching him in the shoulder.

“Shut up Barton.” She croaks. Clint silently winces, turning he buries his face into Y/N’s shoulder trying to not laugh.

“So I love MJ, don’t get me wrong. But being that he’s part of this, world.” She glances around. “I was thinking you’d be his god parents.” She nods, his head comes up. Surprised, she hadn’t told him that. “I just mean, if anything happened. He isn’t exactly normal, but not anything weird. You’d be the best for him.” She shrugs.

“I’ll be, I have to,” Nat sniffs, getting up she’s out of the room quickly.

“I think her phones ringing.” Buck nods, not making eye contact.

“I mean we can change the name.” Y/N looks a little nervous. Buck’s phone dings a moment later.

“She said don’t think about it.” Buck looks up from his phone.

“Now just a middle name.” Clint laughs.

“If you say coffee or pizza, I’m going to let Nat punch you again.” Y/N blinks at him. He grins, leaning in to kiss her.

------------------------

Everything Peaches 2/6/19: @xmtd5 @mo320 @all1e23 @courtmr @avxgers @eliza-kat @izzy--lee @irepeldirt @dumblani @crist1216 @a--1--1--3 @alyssaj23 @allyp1023 @joannie95 @nishanki1 @bugalouie @kolakube9 @tony-stank3 @rileyloves5 @sarahp879 @sea040561 @sexyvixen7 @pcterpvrker @pigwidgexn @doctoranon @tomhardy41 @abschaffer2 @justrae9903 @bookluver01 @teller258316 @callie-bear15 @nickimarie94 @wandressfox @amandab-ftw @carostar2020 @henrietteoaks @nea90sweetie @amberkay284 @circusofchaos @itsagalaxystar @bettercallsabs @miraclesoflove @lucifersnipnips @queenkrissy11 @this-is-mycrisis @sadyoungadult @destiel-artemis @xrosegoldwolfx @paintballkid711 @isabelcrichards @iwillbeinmynest @sweet-honey15 @chanelmadrid13 @mellxander1993 @killerbumblebee @spookygrantaire @geeksareunique @supernatural508 @sammysgirl1997 @itzmegaaaaaaan @booksbeforebois @optimistic-babes @childishhoebinoo @elizabethaellison @aspiringtranslator @mariekoukie6661 @pure-princess-97 @capsheadquaters @samanthasmileys @nerdypinupcrystal @atlas-of-the-world @youclickedthislink @futuremrsb-r-main @lovemarvelousfics @notyourtypicalrose @petersunderoos96 @loving-life-my-way @buckystolemyheart @booktvmoviefangirl @supernatural-girl97 @thefridgeismybestie @dumbbitchenergytm @abbypalmer14-blog @fanfictionjunkie1112 @meganlikesfandoms @awkwardfangirl2014 @supernaturaldean67 @xqueenofthecraziesx   @queenoftheunderdark @writingaworldofmyown @supernaturallover2002 @daughterofthenight117 @mustbeaweasleyginger @mcuwillbethedeathofme @sprinklesandsugarcubes @whothehellisbucky-1930 @verymuchclosetedfangirl @for-the-love-of-the-fandom @ocaptain-mycaptainmorgan @wonderlandfandomkingdom @crazy-little-thing-called-buck @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @stupendoussciencenaturepanda @jamesbarnesappreciationsociety @supernatural-strangerthings-1980

Marvel Tag List 2/6/19: @lumelgy   @dottirose   @jcc04220 @rockagurl @mizzzpink   @jade-taillia @coley0823 @widowsfics @bookluver01 @thelostallycat @shield-agent78 @dtftheavengers   @ilovetvshowsblog @capsheadquaters   @iamwarrenspeace @thefridgeismybestie @whenallsaidanddone @deanwinchestersrifle @fandomsstolemylife00   @daughterofthenight117 @lilmissperfectlyimperfect  

Clint ‘Destory Me, I’ll Thank You’ Barton: @ml7010 @coley0823 @yavanna80 @lakamaa12 @boltsgirl919 @feelmyroarrrr @what-a-fantasy @mrsseizetheday @honey-bee-holly @marvelfansworld @mybarnesmyhero   @the-real-mary-jane @dumbbitchenergytm @agentsinstorybrooke @stuckyandsciencebros @x-whyareyoureadingthis-x @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory

It's Complicated: @amberkay284 @capandbuckylvr @optimistic-babes @jennmurawski13 @bradfordbantams @natromanoffsboys @thosesexytexasboys @thebitchiestnerdtowalktheearth

[imjustthemechanic]

The Stone Knight

Part 1/? - Two Statues Part 2/? - A Curious Interview Part 3/? - John Doe Part 4/? - Escape Attempt Part 5/? - Making the News Part 6/? - Fallout Part 7/? - More Impossible Part 8/? - The Shield Thieves Part 9/? - Reality Sinks In Part 10/? - Preparing a Quest Part 11/? - The Marvelous History of Sir Stephen Part 12/? - Uninvited Guests Part 13/? - So That’s What It Does Part 14/? - The What and the Where Part 15/? - Gearing Up Part 16/? - Just Passing Through Part 17/? - Dinner with Druids Part 18/? - Kracness Henge Part 19/? - A Task Interrupted Part 20/? - The Red Death Part 21/? - Aphelion Part 22/? - The Stone Giants Part 23/? - Nat the Giant Killer Part 24/? - An Interrogation Part 25/? - Guilt Part 26/? - Rushman’s Brilliant Idea Part 27/? - Hunter in Hiding Part 28/? - Ridiculous Part 29/? - The Guy from Barton Part 30/? - Sherwood Forest Part 31/? - Buckeye’s Fall Part 32/? - Robin Hood Part 33/? - Fantasies and Consequences Part 34/? - Swords of Damocles Part 35/? - The Road to London

Sir Stephen is confused by democracy, Nat does more worrying, and Robin Hood thinks skyscrapers are cool.

           They stopped for lunch in Leicester, and then Sharon took over driving while Nat moved to the back of the van, next to Robin, to eat a take-out sandwich.  Robin Hood had been talkative before they’d stopped in Barton-in-Fabis, but now he was quiet, looking out the window at the countryside rolling by and chewing thoughtfully.  Nat wondered what he was thinking.  Was he imagining the life he could have with Marian?  Wondering what had possessed his alternate self to abandon it?  Pondering the nature of reality?  She didn’t want to interrupt by asking him.

           Besides, she had thoughts of her own to get lost in. Natasha had escaped the secret agent business and gone into hiding as a nobody academic at a university that wasn’t known for the field she’d chosen, because she wanted to be a normal person.  It was a lie, of course – she had never been and would never be normal… but ‘truth’ and ‘lies’ were no longer meaningful categories.  If she really wanted it, that kind of life was within her grasp.  All she needed was another Grail fragment, and she could be Natalie Rushman or any other identity she wished to assume.  

           Really, Natalie Rushman would not be a bad person to be.  She’d grown up in a suburb with parents who loved her and usually had enough money to get by. She had, as Allen had said, danced in ballet recitals and built snowmen and angsted over career choices.  She’d probably done things she’d later regretted, because everybody did that at some point, but she was mostly pretty happy with her life – and, most importantly, she’d never tortured or killed anybody, or been locked up in the cold or forced to abandon a friend on the tundra.  That had been the whole point of creating her: Natalie Allyson Rushman was perfectly, beautifully ordinary.

           But she also wasn’t Natasha Romanov.  The terrible things that Natasha had seen and done in her past had brought her to where she was today, and had taught her lessons that Natalie Rushman would never have had the opportunity to learn. Natalie Rushman wouldn’t have been able to fight her way through the mooks on Flotta, or knock out Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest, or work out how to destroy the Red Death’s golems.  The situation Nat was in now needed Natasha Romanov.

           Even after this was over, though… no, the thought of re-writing her past in such a literal fashion made Nat recoil as if she’d just found a tarantula crawling up her arm.  There was a lot of ugly truth in her past, and she had told a lot of lies to cover it.  In the future she would continue to tell lies, because it was the only way she could avoid being thrown in prison, but she preferred to remember the truth, even if nobody else did.  Maybe that was another of the reasons she’d chosen archaeology – because you could learn from the truth.  The ugly parts of it told you the worst that could happen, and you could look back on them and decide to do better in the future.  Lies could not teach, they could only disguise, hiding the painful lessons so that you couldn’t learn or grow from them. They stuck you right back where you started and forced you to make the same mistakes all over again

           “Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it,” she murmured.

           “Hmm?” Robin asked around his mouthful of sandwich.

           “Nothing,” said Nat quickly.  “I probably ought to warn you guys about London.”  Robin Hood and Sir Stephen would have thought of the London of their own centuries as a teeming metropolis.  They’d been absolutely astonished by the size of Inverness and Nottingham, but that wasn’t enough to prepare them.  “The government doesn’t move around anymore, like it did in the Middle Ages.  It stays in London.  Sometimes the Queen stays in other places, but Parliament, which actually rules the country, is in London, and it’s also the economic centre of the country.  It’s one of the biggest cities in the world, with a population of… I think eight million?”  She was pretty sure she’d read that somewhere, but couldn’t recall where.

           “Million?” asked Sir Stephen.

           “Yes, million,” said Natasha.  She took another bite of her sandwich, which she’d almost forgotten about as she pondered.

           “How many is that?” he wanted to know.

           Nat hadn’t realized he didn’t know what the word meant – she’d assumed he just didn’t believe the figure.  She quickly chewed and swallowed so she could explain.  “Oh.  A million is a thousand thousands.”

           Sir Stephen, sitting in the seat directly in front of her, didn’t answer.

           “Do you know how many a thousand is?” asked Nat.

           “Of course I do,” said Sir Stephen.  “So if you were to divide all the inhabitants of London into cohorts of a thousand men…”

           “Men, women, and children,” Nat said.  “We count heads nowadays, not families.”

           “A thousand people,” Sir Stephen corrected himself.  “You could do so eight thousand times?”

           Poor man, he probably thought a thousand was a large number – William had conquered England with only ten thousand men, and at the time that had been an almost unimaginably large army.  As it turned out, an army was exactly what Sir Stephen was thinking about.

           “If half of them are male,” he mused, “and a mere quarter of fighting age, your Queen could call up a force the like of which has never been seen on earth.  That, from London alone!”

           Nat shook her head.  “It doesn’t work that way,” she said.  “These people aren’t soldiers.  The Queen can’t just order them to fight for her.  If there were a battle in London, they would have to be evacuated.”  She hadn’t thought of that yet, but if worst came to worst and the Red Death showed up to take the Grail by force, he would have no end of people to stab or buildings to knock down.  Not to mention the unbelievable carnage if something like the golems got loose in a densely populated area.

           “If she had enough weapons to arm them,” Sir Stephen insisted, “or even just asked them to take up their pitchforks and axes…”

           “They don’t have pitchforks and axes, because they’re not farmers either!” said Nat.  “They’re… they’re merchants and tradespeople and scholars and… and other things you won’t know what they are.  The Queen can’t force people to fight when they’re not trained for it.”

           “If your Queen cannot pardon a criminal nor raise an army, what can she do?” Sir Stephen asked, exasperated.

           “She cuts a lot of ribbons,” said Sam.

           “Shakes a lot of hands,” Sharon agreed.  “Waves at crowds.”

           “She’s on your money,” said Allen.

           “Who makes the laws?” asked Sir Stephen.  “Who leads you in battle?”

           “We vote on that,” Nat explained.  “Like the Romans did, but with less bribery.”

           “But…” Sir Stephen began.

           Sharon interrupted him.  “We haven’t seen any sign of the bad guys in a while, have we?” she asked in a louder voice than necessary, to make the point that she was changing the subject on purpose.

           “No, we haven’t,” Nat agreed – which was odd, now that she thought of it.  Up until they’d left Inverness, Zola and the Red Death had been in step with them the whole time.  They’d gotten to Dr. Hughes and stolen the map, they’d arrived at the henge on Flotta at about the same time, and they’d terrified Darren O’Herlihy.  Now, however, Natasha and the others had been to Barton, to Sherwood Forest, and were on their way to London, and hadn’t encountered any opposition even once.  “What do you think that means?” she asked.  Should they be worried?

           “Perhaps it only means that the ivy and horseshoes are working,” Sir Stephen suggested.  “I never thought I would say such a thing, but bless the witches who sold them to us. Clearly they know their work well.”

           “Or it could mean they’re doing something important while we’re distracted by things they figure are irrelevant,” Nat said.  “If they already knew that Francis had used up his fragment, they might have gone to America or the Continent to look for some that are still active.  Or even directly to the druids, who knows?”

           “Or they know that we’re going directly to the Grail, and they’re following us on the down-low,” said Sam.

           “They don’t seem like down-low types of people,” Sharon observed.

           Having been raised in Russia and worked mostly in America, Natasha was still occasionally startled by just how small Britain was.  Driving the length of a country sounded like something that ought to take a long time, but a determined person could go from Durness to Dover within twenty-four hours.  It had been around ten in the morning when they’d left Barton, and they reached the suburbs of London before two.

           It took the two time travellers a while to realize they were already in the city, and then, as Nat had predicted, they were absolutely astonished by this urban landscape that seemed to go on forever in all directions.

           “A man could live his whole life within the confines of such a city,” Sir Stephen said quietly, “and never know anything existed beyond it.”

           “I think a lot of people do,” Nat said.

           Driving through London, where traffic was thick, almost seemed to take longer than driving to it, especially when they got into the city centre near the Thames.  Natasha started to feel a little shaky when she spotted the outline of the White Tower above the buildings ahead of them.  This was it – they were about to find out whether her theory were correct, or whether she’d wasted everybody’s time.

           At the time it was built, the Tower keep had been the tallest building in London, and it had stayed that way for centuries. It would probably still be impressive to Robin and Sir Stephen if they saw it up close, but for the moment they didn’t even seem to notice it.  Instead, their eyes went past it and up, to something that towered over it by nearly a thousand feet.

           “What is that?” asked Sir Stephen.

           “That’s the Shard,” said Sharon.  “It’s the tallest building in the United Kingdom.”

           “The Tower of London is coming up on our right,” Nat added.  “That’s where I think William the Conqueror hid the Grail.”  It did look rather insignificant with downtown Southwark all around it.  Even the Tower Bridge was over a hundred feet taller.  Time had rendered it nearly impossible to imagine the impact this giant stone keep would have had on a Saxon world, used to timber buildings and defensive ditches.  William’s ambitions now seemed modest indeed.

           Robin and Sir Stephen, however, were still focused on the Shard.  “Do they let people climb it?” Robin asked.  He’d figured out how the windows worked, and now rolled his down so he could stick his head out like a dog for a better look.  “From up there you’d be able to shoot almost anyone in the city!”

           “There’s glass in the windows,” said Sam.

           “Actually, they’ve got an open-air platform at the top, I think,” Sharon said.

           “But they wouldn’t let you take your bow up there anyway,” Nat added.  She was starting to think… Zola couldn’t see or hear what they were doing in the van because of the ivy they’d sellotaped around the windows, but if he were following them he’d definitely know where they stopped.  Why clue him in before absolutely necessary.  “But yeah, you can pay admission and go up, like in the Willis Tower.” Not that they knew what that was.

           “Can we do that?” asked Robin eagerly.

           “We’re not here to sightsee,” said Sharon.

           “Actually…” Nat glanced up at the building again, then shut off her turn signal and headed for the Tower Bridge instead of turning off to the castle itself.  “He’s right – that’s a good vantage point.  If we get some binoculars, we can scope out the whole castle grounds without ever setting foot in them.  It’ll keep the Red Death in the dark a few hours longer.”

           The Shard was even more impressive standing at the base of it looking up.  Everybody craned their necks to see if they could make out the top of it, which was almost lost in the low fog.  They must look, Nat thought, like a bunch of gawking tourists.

           “It looks as if it were built out of air,” said Sir Stephen, taking in the shining steel and glass of the structure.  “I’m not sure I trust it not to fall out from under me.”

           “It’s stayed up so far,” said Nat.  “Let’s see what we can see.”