"Check the paper for wedding announcements. For yours!" The boys howled with laughter at the dumb joke and Robin rolled her eyes before walking out the door, slamming it behind her more forcefully than she meant.
Or, you know, not.
It's not like she cared. The breakup had been mutual. It was the right thing to do, the sensible thing to do. Clearly they never would've worked and they both realized it before it was too late.
And yet there was still a pang in her stomach when Ted made an offhand remark about finding her true love, or when Marshall started humming the wedding march.
Because they weren't supposed to know too.
And if they did, why the hell wouldn't they tell them?
Nothing made sense, and she was just so damn tired of trying to make it make sense. If they knew that she and Barney were awful for each other why did they push them so hard to get together in the first place?
And if they did have faith in the relationship how come they were dismissing it faster than Barney did his bimbos?
She was so damn sick of being the joke.
Robin was the slut who fell for the naked man.
Robin was the silly idiot who giggled when she lied.
Robin was the violent Canadian who smashed tables when her hockey team lost.
Robin was the bimbo who fell for Barney Stinson's lines.
Somewhere along the line their group dynamic had shifted, Robin had stopped feeling like she was in on the joke and began watching from the outside as Lily, Ted and Marshall laughed.
And for the first time, she thought she might have understood how Barney felt all those years, though she'd never admit it. Neither would he. That's what made them 'them,' that's what made them perfect for each other.
Except, somehow not.
"We just broke up," she says, her voice tinged ever so slightly with pain and regret, her eyes piercing into his, desperately searching for something she recognized behind the ridiculous costume.
For a moment, she found it. For a split second his eyes softened, like he was comforting her when Simon dumped her, they opened ever so slightly as he declared his undying love for tacos, they lingered while she told a joke about a boogeyman with a teleprompter. But then the rejections come welling back up and the walls rebuild themselves and he's gone and she knows for sure that whatever they had, whatever they might have had a chance for, is gone.
And no one really cared. Except for them. And now just her.
And she was still standing outside Ted's apartment staring into space, reminiscing about something that never really existed in the first place.