this is one of those 'too long for my mini series' stories, but very much written as part of it. set in december 2014. title from 'lions' by the features.
Robin maybe gets a little, tiny bit carried away with everything. Just a little bit. The candles aren't exactly normal, but that's no big deal, and they had to break out the wedding china sometime. So all in all, not carried away.
She orders dinner from one of Seamless's fancier options and takes the time to scrape the food onto plates and serving dishes, pours out the wine, and then takes a second to admire her efforts. The food, looking almost homemade on the good china, the candles flickering in the dimmed lights, the red wine in the heavy glasses. She even thinks for a second about turning on Barney's stupid fake-window-scenery projection screen (c'mon, Paris). Instead, she sits down on the sofa and waits.
When her husband does arrive home a few minutes later (five get your ass over here texts will do that), he stops in the doorway, flummoxed by the romantic dinner. Robin stands from the sofa slowly, stretching her legs first and thrusting out her boobs a little so that he'll get the full impact of her new Dolce dress and push-up bra. It works: Barney's gaze diverts from the table to her chest; his confusion is replaced with a smirk; he reaches up and loosens his tie. "So when you were asking for my ass…"
"I meant I wanted you home," she says, closing the distance between them, runs her hand up and over his shoulder, but when he leans in for a kiss she pulls her head back, smirking at his pout. "Tonight's important," she says, pulling away. She starts to walk towards the table, trusting he'll follow. "I went to that Brazilian place," she starts to explain, admiring again her fancy grown up place setting —
Barney squeaks a little bit and then she hears two heavy footsteps and his hands are on her hips and he's pulling her against him from behind and saying, "this is gonna be the best booty-call —"
"Zebu Grill," she corrects. "For dinner. It's a restaurant." She wrests herself free and bursts out laughing at the tragically disappointed look on his face. "Steaks."
"Oh," Barney says, looking sadly at the table. Somehow in the past ten seconds he's half unbuttoned his shirt; he does it up again mournfully. "That's fine too."
She rolls her eyes. "And obviously we're having sex after that."
He perks back up. "I knew there was a reason I married you!" He sits down opposite her at the table, picking up his heavy, never-before-used fork with a bemused expression. Robin sits down too, pulling her chair in. She uncovers the serving dishes and they help themselves to vegetables and steak and farofa. It's not exactly an upscale meal, but it feels fancy and special on heavy china, and Robin takes about four bites before she can't hold herself back anymore.
"So, you'll never guess I did at work," Barney is saying —
"I have something important to say," she interrupts.
He raises his eyebrows to his hairline, his fork halfway to his mouth. He puts it down and looks nervous. "You're not … pregnant, are —"
"No." Seriously?
He looks relieved, then up at the ceiling. "You're leaving me. You're running away to marry — what was the name of your douchey ex-boyfriend?"
"Don? No."
"Ted." Barney smirks.
She rolls her eyes, suppresses a smile. "No, moron." He beams at her. Robin takes a deep breath; the smile is harder to fight. "Today's our, well, not that it's a big deal, it's super like, whatever, who cares, I don't care —" her voice gets kind of high and she struggles to rein it in; get back to the point. He's looking at her expectantly, with an open, blank expression that translates to Robin I have no idea what you're talking about. The smile breaks over her face. "Yesterday was our anniversary."
"Oh," he says, and then: "Oh! Awww," he coos. "That's so sweet. We've been married for a whole year. I love you too, baby."
"We haven't been married for a whole year," Robin says. She reaches for her wine.
"Right. I remember it perfectly. It was a warm summer day."
"It was May."
"The sun was shining, tears ran down Ted's face like rain —"
"Rain fell down Ted's face like rain. It poured all day."
"There we were, walking down the aisle with Chewie as awesome music played, so that Leia could give us our medals —"
"That's the end of Star Wars."
"A beautiful morning!"
"Six o'clock at night." She gulps her wine, honestly not sure how serious Barney is. It could go either way; his cheerful, blank smile doesn't offer much of a hint. "But other than all that, you're pretty close."
He beams across the table at her as he chews a mouthful of steak. The overall effect is kind of unattractive. "So how's this our anniversary? Also, I wasn't gonna mention it,"
"Yeah, you were."
"…But aren't you supposed to celebrate those things on the day of?"
Robin stabs at her rice and decides to answer the first question first. "One year ago yesterday, there was this thing, on a rooftop? Flowers, candles, you on bended knee?"
He finishes his next bite of steak, then beams across the table at her again. It's a different smile this time: softer, more in his eyes, and she smiles back and then, a little embarrassed, focuses on her plate. "I remember," he says.
"Do you?" she can't help but snark back.
His smile turns more amused, and he pushes back in his chair, waves an arm above his head like he's tracing a marquee through the air. "Of course I do! It was awesome! You did every single thing I thought you were gonna — and let me tell you now, there were a couple of steps I thought were kinda pushing it. Man, I am so awesome at awesome plays!"
"Okay, buddy," she says, tossing a couple of grains of rice at him before he gets too wrapped up in his own greatness. "Your manipulating me for months and making me feel like crap was very sweet."
He loses the nostalgic look and gives her that soft smile again. "It totally was." It's their anniversary, kinda, so she allows them a moment to stare sappily at one another across the table. Then he breaks the moment by shrugging and adding, "Besides, if you'd said at any point of all that hey Barney, I am hot for your body, let's get together, it wouldn't have taken months."
"What?" she laughs. "Do you not remember the whole 'show up here half naked' thing?"
"Yeah I do," he says with a leer and a nod, his gaze falling on her chest. "But also, you're kinda dumb with feelings."
"Right, I'm the dumb one," she says, as he nods vigorously in agreement. She bites back a laugh and takes a couple more bites of her food. He drains his wine and refills his, and then her, glass. They eat in relative silence for another moment.
"Anyway," she says. This is the kinda embarrassing part, the part she put together this dinner for, the part that feels like it means something. No one besides Marshall and Lily… and probably Ted and Tracy when they get engaged… okay, so that's 90% of their social circle, but… normal people don't celebrate engagement anniversaries. This is something else, something bigger. "That was yesterday. So that means today, we've been together for a year and a day."
He has a slightly blank look again, but responds with another good-natured guess: "Aww, I love you too, baby."
"Yeah, me too," she says. "The point is…" she kind of falters for a half second, and then points her fork at him. "This is now, officially, the longest relationship I've ever had."
The blank look vanishes. He actually looks a little surprised. "Really?"
She nods, patting her mouth with a napkin to give herself the excuse to look away. "Yep. Previous record holder was Ted. We broke up on our one year anniversary."
She'd felt a little bad about it, the way she'd freaked out and ruined their romantic dinner. Then she'd been annoyed that Ted hadn't dropped it. Looking back on it now, though, it had been coming for a while. They hadn't been fighting, but things had been frosty between them, lots of long silences and avoiding. She'd started telling Ted she loved him, but stopped again. He stopped trying to make plans with her. It sucked when it ended, but she was also relieved when it was.
A year later with Barney, and… well, they fight. She can think of four major arguments so far, three of which ended in Barney taking off to Ted's place for the night, melodramatically vowing to never return. But he's always come back. They bicker a lot, disagree on fashion, food, how they should spend their weekends, who works later than who. She steals the blankets, he kicks her in his sleep. Even though Christmas is less than a week away, they still haven't figured out if they should spend it with his family, his father, her father, Ted, or if they should all spring for four last minute tickets to Italy and spend it with Marshall and Lily.
It's many things. Some good, some great, some bad. But it's not cold, it's not silent, it's not ending, and —
And while she's having this gooey tangent, Barney has pulled out his phone and is dialing a number.
"Who are you calling?" Robin asks, narrowing her eyes.
He holds up a single finger, speaking into the phone. "Hey, Ted! Guess what? I just kicked your —"
She lunges up from the table and they wrestle for the phone, Barney withdrawing and playing keepaway. "— Ass. Guess who just beat your stupid relationship record? Tchyeah, — dude, what do you mean? Of course you care! You lost!" Robin takes advantage of his position in front of the sofa to shove him; he falls backwards over the arm. She climbs over him before he can recover and snatches the phone away.
"Hey, Ted," she says sweetly.
"Hi," Ted says over the phone. "Everything going okay over there?" He sounds a little confused.
"Yeah, everything's great," Robin says, batting Barney's hand out of the way and settling down to sit astride his stomach. He does his best to look indignant, which isn't easy lying half on the sofa, his tie flipped up by his ear and shirt half untucked. She smiles down at him. "How are you?"
"Great," says Ted. "I'm actually getting dinner with Tracy tonight, so…"
"Aww, that's sweet," Robin says. Barney glowers up at her. "Hey, say hi to her for me and Barney. Hey, and ask her about coming along with us all to Italy!"
She bats Barney's hand away again. He crosses his arms.
"I don't know," Ted says, sounding worried. Robin shifts her weight a little and makes a show of ignoring her sulking husband. "Do you think it's too soon for that? I mean, that's not just a trip or Christmas together or Christmas with the family, it's all three in one, and —"
"TED," Barney yells. "HANG UP THE PHONE."
" — and I didn't want to ask, but what's going on over there?"
"Oh, it's our anniversary," Robin says.
"TED, I WIN," Barney shouts.
"Ah." Ted says. "Well, have a good time. I'll e-mail you later?"
"Yeah, talk to you soon," Robin says. "Take care!" She makes a big show of pressing the call end button, but before she gets any further, Barney's hands are clenched on her hips and he's shoving her down his stomach, towards his thighs, sitting up as soon as her weight is off his spine; she grinds a little and then they're making out on the sofa, her hands curling around his ears and into his hair, his hands sliding from her hips to her bare thighs and then up to her breasts.
After a few minutes they break apart breathlessly, and she groans, pulling down her dress slightly. "You're a jackass."
"I'm awesome." He grins up at her.
She rolls her eyes and looks down at him, her hand still in his hair. She pets it a little, and his eyes close. She sighs. "Want to just forget about dinner and have sex?"
His eyes fly back open and he starts to unbutton his shirt again. "God, yes."
It's a while before they have the energy and ability to speak in sentences again. Robin dozes on her stomach, arms crossed under her head. Her husband-slash-longest relationship ever is lying on his side, facing her: her eyes are closed, but she can feel his thumb tracing up her spine. It's a tickly, shivery feeling. He reaches her shoulder blade and rests his hand there; she starts to drift again. She'll get dressed and finish dinner in a minute. For real.
A minute later she hears the tapping sound of him on his phone — "you'd better not be texting Ted to brag again," she says bonelessly.
"Nah, just taking a pic of your butt," he says.
"Oh. That's fine then," she says.
A moment later she hears the camera shutter go off. "Hey, Robin?" he asks.
"Yes, Barney?"
"You're not my longest relationship," he says.
"What?" It takes her about as long as it does to ask that she remembers. "Oh. Whatever. Your stupid college girlfriend doesn't count. You didn't even bang her until like ten years later."
"Her boobs weren't even as great as I used to imagine they were," Barney sighs, wistful and disappointed.
She smiles, stretches a little, and sits up. He's hogged all the blankets but it's only December; she's not cold. "How long did the two of you date, anyway?" she asks, trying very hard to sound like she doesn't care. Because she doesn't, not really. It's just… weird. Thinking about it.
"Five years, two months, and seventeen days," he says promptly. She raises an eyebrow. "We met in the first week of college. I needed help setting up my radio, and for some reason, I was drawn to this one room…"
"Yeah, that's Marshall and Lily," she says.
He shrugs, then looks at her — the sort of skittish way he does when he really, really isn't sure and can't brazen it out. "You're not mad, are you?"
"What, that you had a shitty girlfriend in college? We've all been there," she says. It really doesn't bother her. It's weird, but only because it's so out of character for Barney — her Barney, her version of him, the one she struggles to imagine in some sexless hippie loser existence; that she can't imagine as real. And therefore, it doesn't matter one way or another. She scoffs. "We'll just have to make it another four years and whatever."
"Until March 2017," he says cheerfully, whatever flicker of tension he'd had gone. He reaches for the remote; she gets the leftovers from the kitchen and they eat in bed, fine china scattered at random on the tablecloth she spread over the duvet. He makes more inappropriate jokes about Brazilians; she channel surfs them onto an episode of Ice Truckers, he tries to text Ted the picture of her ass, she confiscates his phone.
And that's basically all there is. No roses, no flowers, no gushing declarations of love.
After they'd watched two episodes and the wine is empty, he elbows her side while she's checking her e-mail on her phone. "It's almost one," he says. He nods proudly. "One year and two days." It doesn't make a lot of sense, but he immediately adds, all smug and smirking: "Happy anniversary."
"Aww," she says, like he did earlier. "I love you too, baby." He chuckles. "Four years, two months, and sixteen days to go," she adds, and high fives him without even looking.