#I'm going to hurry up and queue the other chapters because I want to brag about the brilliant idea I came up with for Bruno and Isabela

[foggyfanfic]

Mirabel's Super Secret Adventure

Movie AU

Story Summary: Ever since her gift ceremony, Mirabel hasn't been allowed to do anything by herself. Which is fine, she's fine, she gets it. Mirabel is the miracles back up plan if anything goes wrong, she understands completely why her Abuela is so protective of her. And she's honored, really, to have been chosen for something so important. However. When she overhears her Tio Bruno and his wife talking about secret cracks, and discovers a hidden passage in the walls, Mirabel jumps at the chance to do something without her cousins being roped in to help her. (Can be read as a stand alone, or as a sequel to Love and Fury).

Or: Jared Bush said that things would have been very different if Bruno had had a solid relationship when he had Mirabel's vision. So this is how the movie might have gone if he had a wife and kids.

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Prologue: Mirabel's not Having a Good Brithday

Julieta paced back and forth at the base of Bruno’s tower. There was no way she had the energy to climb all those stairs after the night she’d had, but she was also too antsy to wait in the airy tent Bruno usually held story time in.

She didn’t understand what happened last night. How could Mirabel not get a gift? Even Bruno’s son had gotten a gift and all of Bruno’s kids were adopted.

Not that that made them any less a part of the family, of course, but it did make Mirabel’s lack of gift all the more confusing. There was a horrible part of Julieta that wondered if little Gabriel had somehow stolen the magic meant for her daughter. Unintentionally, of course, she knew her sweet little nephew would never do such a thing on purpose, but…

She sighed, for neither the first nor last time that day. 

Even if Gabriel had gotten the magic meant for Mirabel, that still wouldn’t explain why, or how this happened. And he was just as much a part of the family as any of the other kids, he had just as much right to the miracle as the rest of them.

But why didn’t her daughter get a gift?

Faintly, she heard a large door creak open, the groan of heavy wood parting with the stone doorway echoing off the canyon walls.

Julieta looked up at the rope and wood bridge, waiting.

Her Má had of course wanted a vision from Bruno as soon as the party was over. Thankfully, Bruno’s wife, Leandra, had been able to divert Alma’s attention to reassuring the villagers, while Pepa and Félix comforted the other kids. So Bruno had spent the night with Julieta and Agustín, comforting Mirabel or helping to distract the other children as needed.

There was no putting their Má off forever though, and as soon as Bruno had run out of excuses (and Leandra out of distractions) he was ushered up to his tower.

Where he was taking his damn sweet time.

Julieta huffed and shifted her weight from one foot to another, continuing to watch the bridge. Eventually, they walked across it, Leandra holding the vision and Bruno flinging his hands about in his usual way as he spoke.

His words didn’t carry down to Julieta, but the tension in his voice did.

Leandra rushed down the stairs, quickly pulling ahead of Bruno. She gave Julieta a tight smile, but passed her by with the vision in hand.

“Bruno will explain everything,” Leandra said, in a single breath as she all but jogged by. Julieta didn’t get the chance to even open her mouth to protest. 

She sighed again and turned back to Bruno.

Who was still taking his damn sweet time.

“Ay, Bruno por favor,” she shouted up at him, “hurry up, my nerves are frayed as it is.”

“Right, right, right,” she heard him say, although not loud enough that she thought he might be saying it to her. It didn’t matter though because he did pick up the pace, soon she could hear his sandals slapping against the stone steps. When he finally got to her he stared at her, wringing his hands.

Julieta looked at him expectantly.

“It’s not Mirabel’s fault,” Bruno blurted.

“Of course not,” Julieta agreed immediately, “what isn’t Mirabel’s fault? Her not getting a gift, or-?”

“Or,” Bruno answered, with a nervous little chuckle.

“Bruno,” she groaned, about to mention again how nervous she already was.

“Right, yes, right, sorry,” Bruno held up his hands, a silent plea for patience she didn’t have, “somethings happening to the miracle, it’s not Mirabel’s fault, but she is at the center of it. I think.”

“Y-you think? What’s happening to the miracle? Why-?”

“I don’t know,” Bruno shook his head, wringing his fingers, “this vision, it was, it was different Juli. There was no one answer, no clear path. Literally all I know for sure is that something is happening to the miracle and Mirabel is probably at the center of it.”

Julieta absorbed this very vague and ominous statement then faintly asked, “Where is Leandra going?”

Bruno flinched, “To uh, to lie to Má about it.”

“What?!”

“Juli, it’s me we’re talking about, people always expect the worst from my visions, a-and if they see the one I just had… we need a plan,” Bruno sighed, at first looking tired, then he stood up straight, an increasingly rare occurrence, “we need to make sure people don’t blame Mirabel for whatever is about to happen.”

Julieta opened her mouth, then closed it, and nodded, “Fine, alright. So, what’s the official story?”

—

“-Bruno wasn’t able to see what exactly is going to happen to the miracle, but he did see this,” Leandra held the vision up to Alma, so that it showed the house in its broken state.

Alma gasped and put a hand to her mouth.

“Wait, watch,” Leandra breathed, then shifted the tablet just a little so the house seemed to repair itself, “whatever’s coming, the miracle is ready to fix itself.”

Alma breathed out a long sigh of relief, “And what is Mirabel’s part in all this?”

Leandra swallowed her guilt, looked Alma in the eye, and said, “She is a backup reservoir for the magic. See, the miracle will need her there in order to fix itself. The miracle didn’t skip her, instead of giving her a gift it stored some of itself in her.”

It wasn’t technically a lie, she tried to reassure herself, in fact it might even be true. It was Bruno’s top theory of what the vision meant. So technically she wasn’t lying to her mother in law, she was just… potentially wrong.

Alma slowly took the tablet from her hands, shifting it back and forth. Leandra watched her, reminding herself over and over that this was for Mirabel. Being married to Bruno had taught Leandra exactly how damning a bad reputation could be, how hard it was to escape such things. It didn’t matter how hard she campaigned for him, what changes he made, or how many children showed up to his weekly story time. He would always be Bad Luck Bruno to half the village.

They couldn’t let the same thing happen to Mirabel.

All the same, she hated (potentially) lying to her mother in law. Leandra looked up to Alma, she admired her, and she felt a great deal of sympathy for everything Alma had faced. And that wasn’t even touching on how grateful Leandra was.

Alma was always one of the most ardent protectors of Leandra’s children, nobody was allowed to so much as imply that Leandra and Bruno’s kids weren’t real Madrigals, not if there was anything Alma could say about it. It was already so hard to reassure Gabriel that he was welcome in the family, if they hadn’t had Alma’s staunch support, Leandra wasn’t sure they would have gotten this far.

And now Leandra was lying to Alma. Through her teeth.

Maybe.

“Of course it's Mirabel,” Alma suddenly chuckled, “that sweet girl could hold the whole world in her heart.”

“She really could,” Leandra agreed, wholeheartedly.

Bruno’s second most likely theory was that Mirabel was going to do something to fix whatever was happening, and Leandra had come up with plenty of half truths that would have convinced Alma of that fact despite how damning the vision looked. And she would have used those half truths, if not for Luisa, Julieta, and Bruno himself.

It was something her, Félix, and Agustín often grumbled about, how much pressure their spouses and children faced from the village. And from Alma.

It was too late to save the others, but not Mirabel.

So, she and Bruno had decided to cast Mirabel in a passive role. It was true she could turn out to be the hero of this piece, but she shouldn’t have to be forced into it. She shouldn’t have to spend her whole life on her toes, devoting her entire existence to one day doing what the village expected.

Mirabel deserved the chance to just… be a kid.

Alma sobered, “So the miracle is in danger?”

“Sí, but we don’t know from what,” Leandra sighed and shook her head, “just that as long as Mirabel is safe, there’s hope of the miracle healing itself.”

Alma nodded, “Good. Now come, sit with me. We need to figure out what we’ll tell the village. The last thing we want is for them to panic.”

—

“Agustín, mi amor,” Tía Julieta greeted her husband with a kiss on the cheek, “how much do you trust me?”

“With my life,” Tío Agustín answered immediately, “why?”

“And what would you do to keep our daughter safe?” 

“Anything, why? Juli, what’s happening?”

Tía Julietta sighed, “I can’t tell you everything.”

“What? Why not,” his frown was audible through his tone.

“Because you are terrible at keeping secrets, and that’s exactly what we need to do to keep Mirabel safe,” Tía said.

“Ah. I see. What sort of secret?”

“The official story for last night is that the miracle has stored a piece of itself away in Mirabel’s heart in case it is ever in danger,” there was a pause, “the official story.”

“Right. And I take it there is an unofficial story?”

“Sí, and the fewer people know, the better.”

Tío Agustín sighed very deeply, “Will I get to hear it someday?”

“Sí, we think about ten years from now,” Tía Julietta’s voice was muffled, hands scraped up and down over fabric. They were probably hugging.

“Ten years,” he breathed, then sighed again, “I can wait ten years. For our daughter.”

There was a pause, then Tía Julieta began to sniffle, “Ay, sorry, sorry, I’m just so-. I am so many things right now, one of them being in love with you and another being incredibly grateful my children have you as a father.”

Lips pressed against smooth skin and smacked very quietly, “No need to apologize mi amor, we’re both very tired. And I’m certainly not about to complain about you being in love with me.”

They devolved into gross, cuddly talk after that, so Dolores tuned them out in favor of listening to Tía Leandra help Alma come up with a lie to cover the Official Story, that was also, apparently, covering the Unofficial Story. 

If it weren’t involving her family, she would say this was almost as good as one of Tío Bruno’s stories.