First attempt at How I Met Your Mother fanfiction, please be kind.
When Robin comes in that night, it's like—it's like something breaking, and he'd say it's his heart, but that's just so cheesy and so Ted and so not-Barney that he doesn't. It feels almost like there was a bubble inside him, had been for hours, since they decided they were going to leave Nora and Kevin for each other, and they were going to be proper and honest and not rash and reckless and they were going to do this the proper way. So he did. In hindsight, that must have given her time to think. Think about what she was doing and how real it would be and this was Barney and Kevin and wrecking her good relationship for one that hadn't worked out before.
He smiles at Robin, and it feels like he wants to be cold and cruel and, maybe, maybe he never wants to see her again, but he can't do that to her. He loves her. He loves Robin Scherbatsky. He won't hurt her, not like this. Besides, they're Barney and Robin and they're over, and now is Kevin and Robin and they're good. Kevin and Robin work. Their relationship is stable and functional and Kevin won't get fat and Robin won't start looking like an old lady.
Barney and Robin are—were, were—no Lily and Marshall—hell, they were not even a Ted and name-The-One, and he knows Robin wants that. Someday. He wants that, and aren't he and Robin just one and the same in the end?
Also, he's Barney. Barney's a better bro than a lover and Robin—no, Robin's perfect. But she deserves better, she deserves Kevin. She just—she looks at him and says sorry with her eyes and he smiles back, but it's not okay. Oh God. It was so real, it was like he was—as sad and as Ted as it sounds, for a while he felt like he was almost complete, like he wasn't quite as broken as he's been for what seems like a really long time, and maybe that's why Robin would rather be with Kevin. Because Barney's too destroyed, too destructive.
Barney knows he can't be selfish about this. He loves Robin, and isn't love supposed to be about letting people go? Isn't it? Only, Marshall and Lily never look this hurt and this broken up about each other, and Ted—Ted's Ted, and he's been broken up over chicks a lot, but he's not Ted. He's Barney. So why's he the one going through this crap, the kind of thing that was never even meant for him?
An average-height twenty-something with Cs looks at him from across the bar and Barney winks back, because he's Barney Stinson and he'll always be awesome—as long as he has his suits—but minutes later he finds himself at the apartment, cleaning Robin's room of any sign that any of this, this mess that was today, had happened. He just needs to be alone for the night. He's just broken up with Nora, after all.
He knows it's a lie, but does it really matter?
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