Chapter 4: Lactation Intervention
The bank’s vault door wasn’t just open; it was peeled back like a tin can, its intricate lock mechanisms smoking gently. Gwen crouched on a high ledge overlooking the main floor, her breathing a ragged chorus echoed by the distant wail of sirens. Getting here had been… inelegant. A web-line from her fire escape, a swinging traverse cut brutally short by her shifted center of gravity, followed by a jarring, skidding taxi ride where she’d had to hug the seatbelt to her chest like a overstuffed sack.
Her makeshift suit was a disaster. She’d raided the back of her closet for the largest black stretch fabric she owned—a maternity yoga outfit she’d never worn—and cut the mask into it. The result was a strained, shiny black second skin that gripped every colossal curve, the white spider emblem across her belly distorted into a wide, pale oval. The original suit’s torso piece was worn like a vest, straining at the clasps. It was humiliating. It was also all she had.
Below, three figures in generic black balaclavas worked with frantic efficiency, stuffing bricks of cash into duffel bags. A fourth, their lookout, waved an assault rifle nervously at the cowering tellers and customers lying on the polished floor.
“C’mon, c’mon, move it!” the lookout barked, his voice tight. “Cops are two minutes out!”
Gwen’s body chose that moment to send a sharp, insistent pang from her lower back. A contraction? No. Just the usual monumental ache, dialed up by stress. She adjusted her stance on the ledge, her hips protesting as they settled. The new width was something she still hadn’t calibrated for. She felt like a ship trying to dock in a narrow canal.
One of the thieves near the vault staggered, his bag overstuffed. He dropped a brick of cash. It hit the marble with a slap.
The lookout spun, trigger-happy. “What was that? Who’s there?”
His shout was a jagged thing in the tense air. He fired a single, rattling burst into the ceiling.
The shock of the gunfire didn’t just hit Gwen’s ears; it lanced through her nervous system, a live wire of primal alarm. Her Spider-Sense, usually a precise tingling map of danger, exploded into a white-hot siren that seemed to originate from the very core of her.
The reaction was immediate and catastrophic.
A deep, involuntary convulsion gripped her torso. Her breasts, already painfully full and confined by the strained fabric, erupted. It wasn’t a spray this time. It was a pressurized deluge, twin streams that punched through the thin black spandex with a soft tearing sound, arcing down into the vault lobby below.
The lookout, staring upwards, got a faceful. It wasn’t just wet; it was warm, thick, and utterly bewildering. He sputtered, choking mid-curse.
Simultaneously, a familiar, sickening pressure built in her pelvis. The gunfire’s shock had triggered another surge. Her belly tightened, then pushed outward with a relentless, organic force. The sound was unmistakable here in the vault’s echo chamber: a low, wet pop followed by a series of sharp, grating cracks as her hipbones adjusted, shoving wider to make room. The ledge beneath her creaked in alarm as her center of gravity shifted again, her new, broader hips straining against the already compromised suit. She felt a seam split along her inner thigh.
She was exposed, leaking, and expanding on a ledge, and she had lost the element of surprise.
“What the hell is that?” one thief yelled, wiping his gloved hand across his visor, staring at the milky droplets.
Gwen didn’t have time for shame. Only motion. As the men stared, confused and disgusted, she acted.
Her first web-shot wasn’t at a person. It was at the rifle. A thick glob of webbing coated the weapon’s muzzle and the lookout’s hands. He yelped, trying to shake it off, but the filaments were instantly adhesive. The rifle clattered to the floor, useless.
She swung down, a heavy, pendulous arc. The landing was less a graceful crouch and more a controlled, wide-legged impact that sent a jolt up her spine. She stood between the hostages and the thieves, one hand on the small of her back, the other aimed threateningly.
“Seriously?” she said, her voice filtered through the mask but thick with exasperation. “A bank? It’s all digital now. You’re risking life in prison for serial numbers.”
The thieves stared. The woman before them was a surreal vision: a hugely pregnant figure in a torn, wet, superhero costume, dripping onto the marble floor. One of them snickered, a nervous, brittle sound. “You gotta be kidding me. Spidey’s knocked up?”
The one with the webbed-up hands wasn’t laughing. He was staring at the white, sticky substance mixing with the milk on his sleeves. “This is… this is gross, man.”
Gwen’s body throbbed, a constant, demanding ache. “You think this is gross for you?” she shot back, webbing another thief’s feet to the floor before he could lunge for a dropped pistol. “Try the laundry.”
The third thief, smarter than his friends, went for the duffel bags. Gwen pivoted, her new hips swinging with unexpected momentum, and fired a web-line to yank the bag from his grasp. The force of the pull made her stagger back a step. Balance was a foreign concept now.
A fresh, warm trickle down her stomach told her the lactation hadn’t stopped. It was just a slow seep now, adding to the general damp ruin of her suit. The expanding pressure in her belly was a dull, constant roar.
She had them webbed up in under thirty seconds—a messy, sticky tangle of limbs and shock. Sirens were right outside. She looked at the terrified civilians, then down at her own glistening, heaving form. A wave of dizziness hit her, part exhaustion, part metabolic overload.
She needed to be gone before the cops saw this. Before anyone with a camera phone got a good shot.
With a grunt of effort, she shot a web-line to the shattered skylight she’d entered through. The ascent was agonizingly slow, a clumsy hauling of her own weight. As she cleared the roof and collapsed onto the tar paper, lungs burning, she heard the shouts from below as police stormed the building.
She lay there for a moment, the night sky a blurry haze above her. Her suit was ruined. She was soaked, aching, and wider than she’d been an hour ago. But the grenades hadn’t gone off. The hostages were safe.
A familiar vibration buzzed against her hip—her phone, tucked into a hidden pouch she’d managed to sew into the yoga pants. With a trembling hand, she pulled it out. The screen glowed.
It was a text from her OB/GYN’s office. ‘Routine check-up reminder for tomorrow, 10 AM. Please bring your completed glucose tolerance test results.’
Gwen let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. It echoed weakly across the rooftop. She stared at the message, then at the dark, wet stains spreading across her chest, and finally at the vast, alien curve of her belly, where a tiny foot pushed insistently against her ribcage.
“Okay,” she whispered to the city, to the kids, to herself. “One thing at a time.”