#dsc michael

For today's @duckprintspress May Trope Mayhem prompt: a Milippa meet-cute AU ficlet.

Direct follow up to Part 1, read that first!

total 1k words, rated G, no warnings apply :)

~

Tilly hurries out of the room, and Michael leans back against the sink with a sigh. She feels kind of silly waiting in the bathroom when her dress has already been fixed, but on the other hand, she doesn't want to walk around with an obvious safety pin disaster if she doesn't have to...

Turning her neck to look at the mirror behind her, Michael manages to catch a glimpse of the pins and winces. Tilly was right, it does look pretty obviously macgyvered.

Before Michael can really start to worry about it, Tilly comes back and hands her a beautiful green silk wrap.

"Here! Yes, that colour works even better than I thought it would!" Tilly excitedly holds up the fabric against Michael's dress.

"That looks expensive," Michael murmurs, pinching a bit of fabric between her fingers. It feels as expensive as it looks. "What if it gets damaged? Especially with those pins..."

"Oh, don't worry about it, it'll be fine I promise! I'll take responsibility if it tears or anything, and Philippa can't ever be mad at me."

Michael has to chuckle. That, she believes - even after their short interaction, she already can't imagine anyone really getting mad at Tilly.

Wrap secured around Michael's shoulders, covering the back of her dress, the two women leave the bathroom and make their way through the crowd back to the ballroom. When Michael admits that she has no-one to have dinner with, Tilly insists that Michael accompany her back to her table.

There, they find Philippa, whom Michael realizes with a swooping sensation in her stomach is someone she is already acquaintaned with...

"You didn't tell me your friend is the/ Professor Philippa Georgiou!" She hisses at Tilly who keeps dragging her along despite Michael attempting to duck behind some people to stay out of sight.

"You know each other?" Tilly asks excitedly.

They're close enough now for Philippa to hear, and she looks up with a smile, eyes widening when she sees Michael.

"Professor..."

"Miss Burnham?"

Tilly looks from one to the other and back. "I had no idea you two knew each other! Why didn't you say? Did you do research together?"

"Not really -" "Yes, back when -" they talk over each other, and Philippa chuckles and waves for Michael to- "please, go on."

"No, I mean, yes, I guess we did, but I mean, I was just a student at the time, so it's more that Professor Georgiou did the research and I was assisting..."

"Oh, don't sell yourself short! Your insights were always invaluable. And please, call me Philippa. We're both equals as guests here, and as researchers in the field now, after all."

Blushing at the praise and the invitation to call her erstwhile Professor whom she had always admired by her first name, Michael quickly nods and lets Tilly usher her into a seat.

As she sits down and has to adjust the shawl, Michael remembers with a jolt that the fabric that is now lying across her own shoulders is Philippa's/ - that it must have been draped across the other woman's shoulders just minutes earlier -

Avoiding her gaze and hoping that no-one can tell how quickly her heart is beating, Michael tries to focus on literally anything else. She can't help it, though - she wishes it wasn't just Philippa's shawl touching her skin, but Philippa herself.

~

For the day 8 prompt of @duckprintspress' May Trope Mayhem 2025: a ficlet from DSC Michael Burnham's POV, ft. Sylvia Tilly, modern AU, pre-Milippa relationship - I might write another more shippier ficlet in this 'verse later if anyone's interested!

~

Michael flees to the bathroom as quickly and inconspicuously as she can, holding onto her dress, certain that every person in the ballroom is staring and judging, when in truth probably just a handful of people even notice her quick exit.

Her face feels hot and clammy, and Michael is glad that the bathroom is deserted when she walks in.

She lets go of her tight grip on the fabric, and the dress slides down, revealing her strapless bra. That one at least stays in place. Small mercies...

Wrestling with the dress to get the broken zipper at the back to the front, Michael curses when her nails catch on the fabric. It's just a small tear, barely visible at all, but it's enough to drive tears into her eyes. Does everything have to go wrong today?

~

A toilet flushes, and Michael freezes in shock. Fuck, she should have checked whether any of the stalls were closed. Then again, what would she have been supposed to do? Hide in a toilet stall until she is alone?

A woman with wild red curls bounces out of the stall to the sinks to wash her hands, smiling at Michael then doing a double take when she sees her state of undress.

Michael tries to smile back, more of a grimace, then looks down to fiddle with the closing mechanism. No, it's properly busted, she won't be able to fix that without actual sewing supplies and maybe an entirely new zipper...

"Everything alright?" The redhead asks as she dries her hands.

"My zipper broke," Michael replies, seeing no reason to lie.

"Ohh damn that sucks so much!"

With the stranger's honest sentiment, Michael feels a bit better.

"I don't suppose you have a jacket or top I could borrow?" She asks hopefully.

"Um, no... My friend has a shawl thing, maybe we could try that? But, oh! I've got safety pins, because I always manage to tear stuff, I mean not always but it's happened twice now so I come prepared! That could work, right?"

Michael privately thinks that using safety pins all the way on the back of her dress will look pretty ridiculous, but she doesn't want the other woman to feel bad about her suggestion, so she just smiles and nods. Besides, it's not like she has a better option.

~

"Just give me a - ah, here!" The woman pulls a small plastic box with the pins from her handbag and holds it out to Michael. "I'm Tilly, by the way!"

"Michael." She takes the pins and awkwardly holds up her dress with her elbow pressed to her side while she gets the box open.

"Oh, I know! I heard your speech earlier, it was really good!"

"Oh! You're in the field?" Michael asks, surprised. The symposium isn't mainly visited by experts of her own specialty, after all.

"Uh, no, but my friend Philippa is. She tried to explain some things to me, it mostly went over my head but I mean I still liked your speech! And Philippa likes it, so that's cool right?"

Michael nods distractedly, trying to fix up her dress, when she notices that once the safety pins are in, there's no way she is going to be able to pull it up anymore.

"Um..."

"Some help?" Tilly holds out her hand, and Michael gratefully hands the safety pins back to her, pulls up the dress and turns it the right way around before turning her back to Tilly, who quickly pulls the fabric together and secures it with the safety pins.

Once she is done, it feels tight enough that Michael isn't worried about it sliding down. She wants to turn around to thank Tilly, but the other stops her.

"Hmm, okay... They're kind of visible with all the metal, I guess I should buy pins in different colours, I've never had to fix a top with safety pins before..."

"Don't worry about it," Michael tries to sound cheerful but isn't sure whether she succeeds. "I'm sure it's fine."

"No, wait, let me ask Philippa for her shawl! It's dark green, that goes with the blue right? Be right back!"

~

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