AN: Yeah, I wrote another MacGyver rom-com. No-one will believe me now when I say I don't even like rom-coms…

The title comes from the Taylor Swift song, which is incidentally from the soundtrack of the film Valentine's Day, which was one of the inspirations for this fic (both follow multiple people/couples on Valentine's Day with intersecting storylines). The other inspirations were the Jack/Diane subplot of 2.15, Murdoc + Handcuffs, one of my theories regarding which way they might be going with Bozer/Leanna and Riley (the one that I'm hoping will happen, in all honesty!) and Mac and Jack's little conversation regarding how people in their line of work don't get fairytale endings.

FEBRUARY 13th 2018

8 PM

MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE

'Tiger-bear!'

Wilt Bozer, FBI forensic accountant extraordinaire and part-time filmmaker and kitchen wizard, snorted into his beer and pointed at his BFF's other BFF, Jack Dalton, Army vet, mechanic and owner of Dalton Auto Repair, as his BFF Angus MacGyver, former Army EOD, now a JPL engineer, mimed something that looked a bit like claws.

(Bozer wasn't sure, but if he was on Mac's team for this charades competition – he wasn't, he had teamed up with Riley Davis, Mac's JPL co-worker, though she was in software, while Mac was a hardware guy, while Riley's mom Diane, who also happened to be Jack's ex-girlfriend, was their 'independent adjudicator' – he would have guessed wolverine, the furry wild animal kind, not the Hugh Jackman kind. Or maybe a panther.)

'Man, what the hell is a tiger-bear?'

'It's a criss-cross! Had to kill one with my bare hands once.'

Everyone else snorted in disbelief. Mac paused in his miming and looked very much like he wanted to give Jack a lecture on genetics, but instead seized a glass from next to Riley, who immediately held up a hand.

'Woah, woah, woah! Mac, we talked about this. No props!'

Mac sighed, just as the sand in the hourglass ran out and it made a loud buzzing sound.

(The hourglass had been modified by Mac two hours previous.)

Diane raised an eyebrow and leaned over to whisper in her daughter's ear.

'I thought you said he was smart.'

Meanwhile, Mac, frustrated, put down the glass and flung his hands in the air, addressing Jack.

'Fridge. The word was refrigerator.'

'Refrigerator? Mac, brother, in what Bizzaro parallel universe do fridges have claws? You milking a cow?'

'I was tracing the shape of the evaporator coils on the back of every refrigerator!'

Riley just gestured to Mac, glancing at her mom with a see? look on her face. Diane responded with an elegantly arched eyebrow and a nod, while Bozer pointed at his best friend with his beer bottle as Jack flung his hands up in the air.

'Nobody knows what that is, bro!'

'How are you a genius everywhere else and so bad at this stuff? We discussed this, brother! Keep it simple and non-technical!'

'It's charades, not How It's Made!'

'Seriously, brother, you've just gone and lost us the game!'

'We were trailing 17-1, Jack! I did not just lose us the game!'

'Well, we wouldn't have been trailing 17-1 if you could just keep it simple, not-stupid!'

As Mac and Jack kept bickering, Diane glanced at her daughter and Bozer, an eyebrow raised.

Bozer and Riley just shrugged and shook their heads with fond exasperation.

'Yeah, they're always like this, Mom.'

'You get used to 'em.'

Mac and Jack's bromance (which hadn't always been a bromance – they'd had a contentious first meeting in Afghanistan, but their bromance had, from their stories, quickly bloomed after they saved each other's lives a couple of times and built some mutual respect) was legendary.

So was their banter.

9 PM

Jack followed Riley into the kitchen to help her grab refills for everyone, and leaned on the counter as the young woman reached into the fridge.

'I know what you're doing, Riley.'

'I'm getting everyone refills.'

Jack shook his head with a fond little grin.

Riley had plenty of sass.

She'd had plenty as an eleven-year-old, and even now, sixteen years, including nine years of separation, later, she still had it.

'No, no. Inviting your mom to charades tonight? It's just like when Susan and Sharon recreated their parents' first date at Martinelli's.'

Riley put the beers down on the counter and raised an eyebrow at him.

'Okay, try again with different words.'

'The Parent Trap.' He pointed at her. 'You might not be identical twins with yourself, but I know you invited your mom here tonight to try and rekindle whatever spark there might have been between us.' Jack crossed his arms. 'Who do you think you are, Hayley Mills?'

Riley crossed her own arms.

'You mean Lindsay Lohan?'

'I'm not talking about the reboot. Reboots never work!'

'That one worked.'

'The point is, I've seen the movie too many times. It's not going to happen.'

Riley uncrossed her arms, expression softening.

'Between Sarah last year and Dixie…' The con-woman had seduced Jack, then taken him for almost everything he had. It was made worse by the fact that they were all convinced that her feelings hadn't been entirely faked. '…you've had your share of heartbreaks.' Jack gave a somewhat-bitter chuckle. 'So has Mom.' She paused, looking into the eyes of the man who was the closest thing she'd ever had to a father for a moment. 'Now that she's moving back to LA, would it really be so bad if you two gave it another shot?'

10 PM

As they cleaned up the night's dishes in the kitchen, Riley glanced over at Bozer, who was beginning to look a little down.

That was unsurprising.

Tomorrow was Valentine's Day, and while Riley, if you'd asked her a few years ago, would have scoffed and said that it was a commercialized day marked by overpriced dinners and flowers and chocolates and slick, superficial gestures of 'love', she was now beginning to think that underneath all of that, there was still a heart of genuine love and romance to be found.

(Riley attributed that to the friendship she'd developed with Mac when she'd started working at JPL after a District Attorney, Patricia Thornton, had gotten her out of jail, securing her a really, really good parole deal because she'd gone to prison to protect her mom from The Collective, a nefarious hacker organization that had wanted her to hack the NSA, which she'd refused to do, instead deliberately getting herself caught after setting her mom up with a new identity in Vancouver, and the subsequent friendship she'd developed with the blonde's childhood best friend, and the following reconciliation with Jack.)

(It was very, very hard to not be a little bit of a romantic when you were friends with the three of them, who all seemed to exude goodness. They – especially Mac – said the cheesiest, corniest things, such as we're not just friends, we're family; any problem of yours is a problem of mine, yet somehow, it was also obvious that they meant it wholeheartedly.)

Bozer and his until-recently-girlfriend Leanna (an FBI agent from San Francisco whom Bozer had met when she'd been sent down to LA for a three week assignment) had broken up less than a month ago.

He sighed sadly as he put the last of the plates in the dishwasher, his expression settling into something that made Riley think of kicked puppies.

Only once had she seen Bozer sadder than when he and Leanna had broken up, and that was when he'd told her about the very tragic death of his younger brother when he was a kid.

And his sadness and heartbreak was making her sad, and maybe even breaking her heart a little.

(Sure, sometimes, Bozer-in-love had made her want to vomit, but they'd been kinda sweet, too, and she knew that despite the fact that he and Leanna had only known each other in person for three weeks before going long-distance, Bozer had genuinely loved her.)

Of course it was.

Bozer was her friend.

A really, really good friend.

He probably really should be considered her best friend, despite their relationship's rather complicated start.

When they'd first been introduced by Mac, he'd hit on her endlessly. She'd hated that, it'd made her uncomfortable, even though she'd thought that Bozer, the real Bozer, who was loyal and sweet and funny, who always tried to lighten the mood and did everything he could to bring cheer and that feeling of home into his friends' lives (it might not seem like much, but Riley appreciated his amazing home-cooked meals and crazy Halloween costumes and outrageous stories more than she could say), who'd helped her find an apartment, introduced her to this ridiculous but surprisingly fun game that involved hitting rubber ducks into Mac and Bozer's neighbour's pool with golf clubs when she'd mentioned that she'd never played mini-golf, taught her how to cook and gone all-out to convince her of the magic of Christmas, was actually kind of cute.

Then, Jack had given him the kick up the ass he'd needed to stop letting his hopes about what they could be get in the way of their friendship, and they'd become real, true, great friends.

They played video games together (they had the same great taste – they both loved Resident Evil 7), grabbed burgers and tacos and Philly cheesesteaks and lemon curd donuts and fried chicken and all manner of other delicious meals from food trucks and diners and dives (Bozer was really into food blogs, and Riley had written a little program to filter through the huge number of recommendations online to pick out the best of the best for them to try) and went shopping together too (they were both really stylish – unlike two former soldiers that they both knew…).

Bozer was staring at the kitchen counter without really seeing it, still very much morose.

Riley really, really didn't like that look on him.

Bozer was a cheerful person by nature, and who didn't hate seeing their friends sad?

So, she dried her hands and put an arm around his shoulders with a conspiratorial little grin.

'Wanna help me pull a Parent Trap on my mom and Jack?'

Meanwhile, out on the deck, Mac was cleaning up.

He wasn't supposed to be doing that alone; Jack and Diane, who were both leaning on the railing, supposedly staring at the view but really staring at each other while the other wasn't looking, as Jack told a funny anecdote from his recent high school reunion and Diane laughed musically, were supposed to be helping.

Obviously, they aren't.

Mac smiled as he picked up several beer bottles.

But I don't mind.

After all, who could begrudge their friends some happiness? A shot at that white-picket-fence happy ending? A chance to build a life with the right one?

Especially a friend as deserving as Jack.

11 PM

Jack made his way back out onto the deck, where Mac was standing, alone, staring at the LA skyline, his fingers re-shaping a paperclip.

(Bozer was dropping Riley and Diane back at Riley's, where Diane was staying until she found her own place.)

There was a sad, affectionate little smile on the older man's face as he walked over to join the younger.

Jack knew very well that Mac believed in the true meaning, the true heart, of Valentine's Day.

He also knew that Mac very much wanted that white-picket-fence happy ending, with a wife, kids and maybe a dog called Archimedes the Second.

He had known that ever since one night in the desert on the other side of the world and a poignant, sad, hopeful, wistful and reminiscent conversation.

And he knew that Mac's romantic history was, to say the least, complicated, movie-worthy and pretty tragic.

And the most recent 'event' in said history was probably the most tragic of all.

In November of the previous year, the young JPL engineer had been called upon for an emergency video consultation.

(There was a reason why Mac, a college dropout – an MIT dropout, but still a dropout – had received several prestigious job offers, including from JPL, DARPA and the CIA's research division, when he'd returned home from Afghanistan for good.)

(Jack had personally borne witness to – and been saved by – more than a handful of the apparent miracles that the younger man could pull off, using anything and everything from paperclips and duct tape and sticks of gum to a rifle bolt carrier, parts of a Humvee, rocks and the awning of an Afghani fruit seller's stand.)

A college research vessel, the R.V. Bancroft, had been badly damaged, without power, and stranded in the Arctic. Help had been hours away, and the souls on-board hadn't had that much time.

Using only what had been on-board the ship and the expedition leader, PhD student and glaciologist Zoe Kiruma, as his hands, Mac had pulled off several almost-miracles, against all odds.

But one last near-miracle had been beyond him.

He and Zoe had saved 31 out of the 32 souls on-board.

But Mac had never gotten to show Zoe around JPL and they'd never gotten to go grab rocky road ice-cream like they'd planned.

They might never have met in person, and they might have only ever known each other for a few hours, but they had connected.

Connected in a special way.

Jack believed, from everything he'd heard, that if she'd lived, Zoe might well have been Mac's right one.

She was very intelligent, she was beautiful. She was geeky and sweet and hadn't just rolled with Mac's weirdness, she'd understood it and appreciated it and found it attractive. And she was brave and strong and the sort of person who'd give her life for others.

So, of course, he knew that this Valentine's Day couldn't be easy for Mac.

'You wanna talk, son?'

Mac glanced over at him, looking up from the ice-cream-cone-shaped paperclip in his hands, a sadness-tinged, soft, wistful smile on his face.

'No, not really.'

Jack smiled that same smile back at the blonde, and reached out to put an arm around his shoulders.

'Alright, then you don't have to. But that don't mean I have to be silent, right? 'Cause you know I like to chat…'

As Jack rambled, Mac shook his head with a chuckle.

Jack's smile widened.

That was definitely a win.

FEBRUARY 14th 2018

12 AM

'You okay, bro? You know, since tomorrow's tomorrow and all…'

Bozer sipped at a mug of his special, top-secret-recipe hot chocolate, as his BFF, leaning on the other side of the kitchen counter that Bozer was sitting at, sipped his own hot drink.

(Jack had left a little while ago, and the two roommates were having a quick nightcap before turning in.)

Mac gave a wry little smirk.

'Technically, it already is Valentine's Day, Boze.' Bozer rolled his eyes with exasperated affection, as Mac's expression softened. 'And yeah, I'm okay.' He paused and sipped his hot chocolate. 'Are you okay, since today is Valentine's Day?'

Bozer shot him an I see what you did there and I'm really not impressed look, then his own expression grew more serious and simultaneously softer and he nodded.

'Yeah.' Then, his face broke into a fond little grin, tinged with wryness and sadness. 'With friends like you, who needs a V-Day date?'

Mac returned that grin, clinking his mug to Bozer's in a toast, before the shorter man got up off his stool and pulled his BFF into a side-hug.

There's a bit of a gap in my life that my friends-who-are-family can't fill, as amazing as they are.

I am lonely in a way that they can't help me with.

But that does not mean that I'm alone, and that does not mean that I'm lonely in general.

I have a family. I have loved ones who love me in return.

So even if I don't find that white-picket-fence ending; wife, kids and maybe a dog, I know I've already got a happy ending.

1 AM

CHEZ DALTON

(JACK'S RESIDENCE)

Jack walked back into his bedroom from the bathroom, and got into bed, but instead of lying down, sat there and stared at the framed Die Hard poster, with Bruce Willis heroically posed as John McClane, that hung on the wall opposite his bed.

The poster that Riley had given him for Christmas when she was fifteen.

One of those precious Christmases when they'd been, in hindsight, a proper family.

(Christmas had never been a big deal for the Davis women, but they'd had a lovely little celebration, just the three of them, a handful of times, and Jack truly treasured those memories.)

He'd been very, very foolish to walk out that night, and to refuse to return any of Diane and Riley's calls and texts.

He'd been scared.

A little scared that they might reject him for throwing Elwood around, for using violence like he had (well, better than he had, actually – Jack was a Delta, after all; he could definitely beat up a drunk with no military training who hardly worked out without breaking a sweat).

But, honestly, in his heart of hearts, he'd walked out that night because he'd been scared of what he'd come to mean to them.

He'd been scared, because he'd realized, deep down, that Riley was starting to view him as a father, and he was so, so scared of screwing that up, because he had never thought that he was a good enough man for the two of them.

So he'd done something abysmally stupid and left them.

He'd been so, so lucky that Riley had fallen into his life by chance, by coincidence again.

(It'd taken him years to realize his mistake – honestly, it'd taken Riley falling into his life again - but he had.)

(Jack didn't care what Mac said about coincidences being statistically inevitable. He saw Riley's re-entry into his life by way of her becoming Mac's co-worker and friend as a blessing, as a stroke of extraordinarily good fortune, a second chance granted to him that he wasn't convinced he deserved, but was doing everything he could to earn, to prove that he was worthy of.)

Jack shook his head, a regretful, yet somehow affectionate, smile on his face.

He could practically hear Diane's voice in his head, full of exasperated fondness.

Jack Wyatt Dalton, you are a very stupid man.

AN: How was that? Did I do a decent job adapting canon elements to this AU? This story is complete; there's four full chapters plus an epilogue, and I'll post a chapter a day from today (the day before Valentine's Day here in Australia) until it's done.