this is a bit long for my one-shot series, so…

2010.

Don is great. Don is amazing — once she'd gotten past his exterior, he'd turned out to be mature, smart, good in bed, and not too serious. They've been together only a few days, but Robin couldn't be happier. Her life is finally getting back on track, after a long detour into ridiculous, shallow misery.

Yep, Don is great.

Lily's teasing her about it in the booth while they wait for the guys to show up — ooh, the glow of new love, and Robin's filling her in on the bedroom details, and she's feeling light and carefree, flush with new-relationship hopefulness. Then someone else comes into the bar, and it's Barney.

Lately, whenever Robin has so much as looked at him she's wanted to either punch him or throw up; she feels a little of that customary dread glancing over at him. There's a second where he just stands at the foot of the stairs, and Robin doesn't know if he's going to come over to the booth or say hi to some slut at the bar — but then Lily's calling him over and he does, sliding into the booth opposite Robin.

"Where are the guys?" he asks, and Lily fills him in, and then he goes to get a drink, and then the three of them talk for a little while, not about Don or easy lays, but work and Ted's ongoing Ted-ness. Then Lily has to get up and take a call, leaving Robin alone with Barney.

They immediately fall into a silence, and Robin remembers breaking up with Ted, how hard it is to go back to being friends. Especially when it's Barney, who seems to have been going out of his way to be horrible lately. But she also remembers the gun range the other day, and how they promised to be friends, and she knows the first step is making an effort. Robin takes a deep breath. "So, um —"

"Here," Barney says. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a plain white envelope, puts it down on the table and pushes it at her.

Robin reaches for it cautiously, opens the unsealed flap. There's a greeting card inside: a penguin wearing shades on an electric blue background. The writing on the outside reads: IF YOU WERE ANY COOLER…, and when she opens the card, the sentence finishes YOU'D BE ME. HAVE A HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Underneath, Barney had scrawled sry for being a douchebag and drawn a pair of stick figures. She glances up at him with something like alarm, but he's frowning at the card, his expression tense, fingers drumming on the table.

She swallows. "It's not my birthday."

"It was the only penguin card I could find," he says. She has the feeling he's avoiding looking at her too much. "You like penguins."

"Yeah," she says. She doesn't know what to say; her heart is going. "Thanks."

He looks up at her. She tries to smile. The corners of his mouth lift. She doesn't think about Don for a while.

2011.

"You okay?" Barney asks. They're all at the Central Park Zoo, Marshall and Lily having decided that their baby's love of the environment and animals should start while he or she is still in the womb, and the other having tagged along because, hello, who doesn't like zoos? Right now, Ted, Marshall, and Lily are cooing over some restless Grizzlies, but Robin's seen plenty of those back in Canada, and so is sitting on a bench nearby, lost in thought.

Or she was, until Barney peeled away from the others and stay himself down next to her. He's sitting close, legs sprawled out, and she imagines she can feel the heat off his body. Or she's just hallucinating. Or — something. Did he always sit this close to her? Or is this just a dumb Barney, no sense of personal space thing? Or has Robin just gone out of her freaking mind because Lily planted weird ideas in her head at the wedding? She'd ask Kevin at their next session, but doesn't want to seem as insane as she clearly is.

"Yeah, fine," Robin says. "I just don't care about grizzlies. Been there, hunted that, you know?"

Barney shoots her a concerned look. "Robin, you can't hunt bears. They're not even edible."

"Uh, yeah, they are and yeah, I have," she says, which only serves to increase the concern in his expression; Barney pats his horrible tie nervously. "Just kidding?" Robin adds, wishing he wouldn't look at her like she was a freak.

"You've been three steps behind us all day," he says after a few seconds of them watching Ted and Marshall and Lily.

She hadn't thought he'd noticed. "I guess I'm just not that into zoos," she says.

It was him she was avoiding. It wasn't like he'd done anything, said anything, but it's hard to look at him, talk to him. All summer had been one thing and then another, and even if they'd agreed not to try again, it had felt like it was leading somewhere. But had she just been misreading all the signals? Had they really been on the same page? When he'd tried to kiss her in the hurricane, had that just been her asshole friend making a move on a nearby woman? Maybe he really had been talking only about Ted and Zoey. And if so, fine, fine, it's not like Robin cares. Whatever.

But then he'd just turned around and fallen for Nora. Just like that.

He hadn't even hesitated.

"How can you not be into zoos?" Barney scoffs. "Zoos are awesome. They're animals."

"I'm not five!" Robin snaps a little, and he stops bickering with her.

"You okay, bro?" he asks carefully.

She wants to keep bickering with him, joking around with him. She wants to move closer to him on the bench. She wants to get up and run away. She wants to call her shrink and schedule like, ten emergency sessions in a row. "I just don't care about zoos," she says.

She doesn't think he's going to push it, but all at once his expression lights up. "I have a great idea!" he says happily, and he grabs her by the wrist, standing and tugging her up from the bench, "you're gonna love it!"

Robin feels clumsy and flustered as he pulls her away from the grizzlies and the others, down the steps, and through the tiny zoo to a pair of nearby double doors leading to an indoor exhibit. She follows his purposeful stride as best she can, keenly aware of his fingers around her wrist — not too tight, but firm, his hand dry and warm — and feeling like the biggest idiot on the planet, like some moony teenager.

Stupid Lily.

Stupid Nora.

The bird house is dark and cool, with a salty, musty smell: thick carpeting on the walls and floors muffles the excited shrieking of children, who race past them with parents towards the main exhibit, which is, of course, penguins: swimming and bobbing against the glass, preening and sitting on rocks, waddling to and fro. Robin's heart is instantly melted as she sees one waddle towards the edge of his rock, flop into the water with an ungraceful belly flop of a dive.

Children are pressed up against the glass, climbing up onto the benches for better views of the colony, but Barney leads them to a empty spot, and they sit pressed up to one another in the small space, Robin's knee on the carpeted bench so she can see into the tank better. A penguin bobs right next to her, and she looks up at its fat little belly and useless little wings and stupid little face.

"Look at it," she chortles, "it's so fat it doesn't even know how to dive. Stupid penguin," she says, won over despite herself; she turns to Barney, grinning, but he's grinning back at her, his knee pressing into hers, and she realizes he's still holding her wrist at the same time he does, because he suddenly lets go.

They're sitting really close. They just look at one another.

This feels like —

But he turns and sits up to look at the tank behind him, and then Robin hears some kid yell look, they're cuddling and obviously she then has to to look and see for herself.

Stupid penguins.

2012.

Robin has been engaged to Barney Stinson for a week and a half and is already super mad at him.

She'd just barely survived Christmas with his family, his mom just about bursting into tears over the turkey because her baby was getting married, James making her hold Sadie for like, an hour — and then yesterday had been White Plains and Jerry, which had been its own circle of chintzy, suburban hell.

But she'd gotten through it, and all she'd asked for in return was certain sexual favors and some them time. Barney had been happy to comply on both counts, and had made them reservations at a nice restaurant downtown.

Reservations he's just blown off.

She stares at her phone. sry, stuck at work reads his text, same as it did two minutes ago when she'd received it. Seriously? Is he serious? When has Barney ever, ever been stuck at work? She thinks he's gone to work twice in the entire period of their engagement. Which, on further reflection, might be part of the problem.

She texts him back, you're not serious, like a warning, and sits down on his sofa in a disbelieving huff. The reservations are in an hour. This was supposed to be a romantic dinner. God help her, she was looking forward to it, dressed up for it, bragged about it to Lily earlier in the day. Oh, we can't meet at the bar; we're going out. Like they're this sophisticated actual couple now.

But he cancelled.

He texts her back: boss needs me, followed by koreans: vague is it is it's more than he usually says about work — Robin isn't even sure who his boss is — and if that sneak peek is meant to console her, it doesn't work.

I don't give a shit about nkorea, she texts him, after she's thrown and retrieved her left shoe.

nk's awesome. we can go to pyongyang smtime, he texts back — clearly, he's not too busy with his "work emergency" to chat, and Robin sits back down on the sofa in mounting anger, that he's texting about vacation spots and blew off dinner and doesn't know she's even mad about it, apparently.

Just shut up. Arguing, yelling, via text message is not as good as the real thing. I'm really angry at you right now.

She tosses her phone on the coffee table. Takes a deep breath. Crosses her arms over her new dress, watches the phone vibrate with a bitter satisfaction. It vibrates again with another text, and she still doesn't pick it up, just glowers at it as her fiancé sends her text after text, hoping he's gotten the hint, finally.

Five buzzes. Six. Seven. It's when her phone shakes for the tenth time that Robin starts to wonder — what the hell is he writing, to leave her so many text messages so fast? She wants him to know she's ignoring him, blowing him off like he blew off dinner, but…

She picks up the phone, and reads:

Why?

not my fault

ROBIN

? ? ? ? ?

dont be a girl about it

There was a brief pause, and then he'd begun to send her emoticons. Or, one emoticon in particular; a penguin's head, first one, then four in a row, then columns of penguins three deep; she pictures him sitting in whatever meeting he's in, finger jabbing the screen over and over again:

I'm sorry

ok?

Robin looks down at her phone, the military parade of penguins, dimly aware that Barney must think they're because they're cute she'll be so overcome with their fat tummies and fancy manners that she'll totally forget that he blew off their dinner — these emoticons aren't even that cute or realistic — but she pictures him jabbing at his phone, that proud-of-himself smirk on his face, and…

She sighs, unlocks the phone. Just so you know, I'm still mad.

But not as mad, he texts back immediately, throwing in a few more penguins as punctuation.

We're going out tomorrow. I don't care if it leads to nuke war with nkorea or how much $$ it costs you, she texts, and sighs, and slips off her pumps and curls up on his sofa.

ok. nuke war = awesome, he replies.

iloveyou, he replies, squashed together like he's half afraid to type it.

two penguin emotes and a smirking face, he replies.

She sends back a frowning face, smiling at the penguins.

2013.

Robin presses her knuckles against her lip as she considers the animal before her: a stuffed penguin doll, stuffed full of cotton with shiny black eyes. It's almost as tall as she is, and rests against the balcony window so it won't fall over. "Eh?" Barney says proudly, gesturing towards it.

"Wow," she says. "This is … definitely the biggest penguin doll I have ever seen."

"Right? I special ordered it. No sweat." her husband puffs out his chest. "It's great, right? You're not mad at me about the other day anymore now," he announces, as a statement instead of a question.

Robin drops her hand. "Oh, I'm totally still mad at you about the other day," she says, raising her eyebrows.

Barney looks so confused and surprised that she shakes her head, rolls her eyes a little. "But —" he gestures at the stuffed animal again. "Penguin!"

"You made me sleep in the wet spot! You just rolled right over and —"

"You always make me —" Barney interrupts, raising himself up to full height, and then he interrupts himself with, "Penguin!", pointing with both hands at the enormous toy.

Robin turns away, whirls back on him. "This just in! I don't like penguins nearly as much as you think I do!"

"What?" Barney's mouth falls open, his eyes widen in pure surprise, still pointing at the penguin. "Robin, it's an emperor penguin."

"I literally have no idea when you decided I love penguins, but I actually don't!" He's still staring at her in shock, and looks so blown away that she feels herself soften. She chuckles under her breath, and he blinks, stops pointing.

"You love penguins," he says.

"I do not. Name one time that I loved penguins." Robin crosses her arms.

"You took one as your date when we went to the Museum of Natural History!"

Dammit. Robin tries not to laugh, to keep a straight face. "Totally different! It was a black tie affair…" she feels her cheeks tremble, "and he was wearing a tux!" She tries to cover her laugh, but it's a lost cause, remembering the penguin, he's stuffed, it had been the funniest thing, the funniest, she can't hold back her laughter at the memory.

"I rest my case," Barney smirks.

"Okay, one time," she says, fighting off a few stray giggles.

"You love them."

"I do not," she says.

"I have been getting you penguin stuff for years," he says, pointing at the doll. "You love them."

"What? No, you haven't." Now she's just a little confused, puts her hands on her hips.

"I got you a card," he says.

"When?"

"And there was the time at the zoo."

"You didn't get me anything at the zoo," Robin says, remembering the day in question. She narrows her eyes. "Is that why whenever you're late coming home from wherever, you send me like eighty penguin emoticons?" He looks sheepish. "Oh my god," Robin says. "How long have you been doing this?" Dammit, she'd thought it was kind of weird when he made a big donation to the Penguin Conservatory around the time they'd had that big fight about American Thanksgiving; she'd assumed it was a tax thing.

"A… few years," Barney admits.

"Oh my god," she says again. She looks at the penguin with a new understanding. "So just to be clear, whenever you think I'm mad at you, you bust out something with penguins, and you think it makes me forgive you?"

"It does," he insists. "It works every time."

Robin stares at him, and he looks defiantly back, chin raised a little bit, arms crossed, looking all of twelve years old. She starts to say something, stops, and then tries again: "Maybe I forgive you because you're —" cute, she's about to say, god fucking help her. Weirdly adorable and incredibly stupid. "a huge idiot," she says, and his face splits into such a grin that she smiles back, feels that pinchy heart feeling she gets whenever she remembers how much she loves him.

"We're giving this guy to Marshall and Lily when they come home," she warns, pointing at the penguin.

"It was really expensive, but okay," he says, moving in to kiss her.

2009.

It takes them most of the night, a trip through Bushwick, and one low-speed car chase, but they do get the notebook back in the end. Robin spends the cab ride from Brooklyn flipping through it while Barney pretends to listen to her corrections, and then blatantly ignoring her and trying to sleep against the window. Robin flips through the rest of the book in a morbid silence, desperate to know what her and ex and her good fri… boyfriend… had been saying about her.

Ted covered all the basics in his lectures, with an emphasis on avoiding and identifying things Robin dislikes: she finds lists of foods she won't eat, inferior musical groups and hockey leagues, and all that is pretty spot on. There's a list of Robin's favorite pastimes (generally accurate, but she doesn't watch that much daytime TV), with the rest of the page taken up by stick figures in sexual positions that Robin peruses with mild interest. She's reading gift ideas for holidays and birthdays and half wishing she had a pen to add some suggestions when Barney's head lolls from the window to her shoulder with a heavy thump.

His hair brushes against her neck and jaw, soft and bristly with gel, and she can feel the warmth of him against her skin. Her heart kinda seizes up a little. Part of her wants to shrug him off of her, keenly aware of the cab driver humming to the radio, taxi windows anyone could look into — and another, even scarier part of her kind of likes it. Her — boyfriend. Sleeping against her.

Except Barney isn't asleep, because he shifts and half-heartedly sits up a second later. "You're not mad?" he murmurs, his body listing towards hers. "You're still reading it." Not asleep, but close to it. She looks down at the open notebook in her lap.

"Not really," she admits.

"Good," he says, then clears his throat, tries to sit up and away from her.

That scary part of her wants to tell him he can lean on her shoulder and go to sleep. Robin bites her lip. "But I'm still burning this when we get back to your place."

"That's okay," he says, tilting his head backwards against the ledge of the cab's back window, and it occurs to her she could rest again him if she wanted, which she doesn't. "I know it all now."

"Oh, really?" Robin asks, completely unable to help the challenging note in her voice.

"The important stuff," Barney says. "You're creepy when you're mad or hungry; you like penguins."

Okay, maybe Ted had a point about the hunger face, but creepy? She elbows Barney. "Hate to break it to you, but a lot of Ted's 'keep me happy' advice was kind of exaggerated."

"Doesn't matter," he says. "Also, I know the most important thing," and Robin kind of braces herself, catches her breath, wondering if he's going to say something sweet like earlier on the stoop, or call her out on the code phrases — he clears his throat mysteriously. "Ted couldn't get you off to the knee thing." She relaxes. Of course that's the only thing he really cares about.

"No one can get off to that knee thing," she says, and then realizes what she's saying around the same moment a shit-eating grin curls onto Barney's face.

"Challenge accepted," he exclaims, just as she knew he would, but sleepily, with his eyes shut.

She laughs anyway, jostling him with his shoulder, not moving away after. "For me or for you?"

"We'll work it out," he promises.

She knows he'll absolutely try his hardest, and it makes her smile (even if she's pretty sure it ain't gonna happen). "You're such a moron," she says. Her fingers run over a crease in the notebook's spine. His fingers run over the skin of her thigh.

2014.

Barney drops a battered composition book on the table in front of Ted. Ted reaches for it, assuming it's his, not sure what Barney was doing with it, but he opens it up and sees his friend's handwriting. "Dude, what is this?" Ted asks, skimming it — he answers his own question after a couple of paragraphs.

"You kept this?" Ted asks, weirdly touched by the his erstwhile student's gesture.

"Please," Barney says, plopping down into a chair across the kitchen table. "Turn to the folded page." Ted does, flipping through five-year-old notes. "BTW," Barney adds, "your penguin advice was total shit."

"It is not," Ted protests, thinking that his former pupil should be a little more grateful since clearly Ted's stunning mentoring led to Barney and Robin's happy marriage.

"Total shit," Barney repeats. Ted finds the correct page and stares at a stick figure labeled ROBIN, arrows pointing to surprising endogenous zones. There's a section he doesn't remember in his lectures, a red inked line pointing from Robin's knee to a handwritten paragraph of incredibly detailed…

"Bro!" Ted says, snapping the notebook shut.

"Yeah," says Barney proudly, nodding. "You know it."