August, 2009.
"I just don't believe in birthdays, that's all."
"What do you mean, you don't believe in birthdays?"
"I mean," he said while carefully placing his suit jacket on its usual place on her armchair, "birthdays are dumb. I don't need a bunch of other people celebrating me. I celebrate myself every day." He unbuttoned his collar and his cuffs, a gesture she found incredibly hot. He picked up on her turned on expression and winked at her. "And we'll celebrate in just a second, if you know what I mean."
She started smiling, but snapped out of it pretty quickly. "No!" He rolled his eyes. "Barney, we're not celebrating anything tonight until you tell me the day I should actually celebrate you on."
Barney slipped in the bed next to her, kicking off the covers. "Well in that case, it's today." He said as he started kissing her shoulder.
"I know it's not today, stop being an idiot." She pushed him away, and he crashed back on his pillow, grunting.
"We both know you're not gonna withhold sex, Robin. You should just give up."
"Oh, really? Wait, what's that thing you always say again? Oh, I've got it. Challenge accepted!" She gave him a bitter smile, turned to her side and went to sleep.
She felt him shaking her awake at 2 in the morning. "It's January 20th, okay? Now can you just promise not to tell anyone and never make a big deal out of it and please, for the love of God, can we just have sex now?"
January 20th, 2010.
She kept her promise.
They broke up later that year, and she started spending her nights away from MacLaren's, safe in those little cubicles of her favorite Brooklyn shooting range, where nothing seemed to get to her, where not even those thoughts of him running his stupid plays seemed enough to hurt her. She was fine. She kept shooting, her arms steady, because eventually, she would believe it too. She had to.
She still got to MacLaren's that particular night, her friends chatting at their usual booth. She spotted him at the bar, waiting for their drinks, wearing a suit she remembered resting on her bedroom armchair, its neatness clashing with the rumpled sheets they had been tangled in. He was standing alone, and she could see he was not planning on hooking up with anyone that night. His expression was thoughtful, his stare fixed on a distant spot of the counter, serious. She approached him, still unnoticed by the others, and he slightly turned his body to her, the hint of a smile on his face. It wasn't easy, being around him, and for a moment she wished she had stayed at the shooting range that night, for a moment she thought about mumbling an apology, turning around and disappearing into a cab. But she didn't. Instead, she leaned almost imperceptibly against his arm, reaching out with her head and giving him a soft kiss on the cheek. She rested her forehead against his temple for just a moment longer.
"Happy Birthday, Barney." She whispered, and then she was gone, a forced smile on her face while she headed for the booth. Nobody noticed. He came back a minute later, handing her her drink.
Scotch on the rocks. A smile. A silent thank you.
January 20th, 2011.
They hang out at MacLaren's, as they always did. She smuggled him a couple of cigars, didn't bring the subject up for the rest of the night. He knocked at her door later that night, finding her in her shorts and Canada shirt, hair messily pulled up, eyes sleepy.
His suit was still smooth and perfect as ever, but his tie was gone. He had unbuttoned his collar, and his face looked tired. Her tone was protective. "What's wrong, Barney?"
"Would you come with me to my father's house?"
New York's January air was cold on her thighs. She was Canadian, but she probably should've considered putting on a pair of sweatpants. She hugged her coat closer, thankful to have at least thought about grabbing it before nodding and following Barney out of her apartment. She was walking close to him, their arms almost touching. He stopped to open a car.
"You've got a car?"
"Eh." He shrugged, opening the passenger door and letting her in. It smelled like him.
She watched him as he switched on the ignition, and suddenly her seat started heating up against her cold legs. He shot her a glance as she jumped and looked down to her seat.
"I saw you were cold."
She snorted. "Please. I'm never cold." But she was smiling and he was smiling back, and she just let it go.
They drove all the way up to Westchester County that night, neither of them daring to talk about what they were actually doing. They just talked about meaningless things instead, Ted and Zoey and her new job and his coming up laser-tag tournament on Valentine's day, and no, Scherbatsky, you're not getting out of that.
They fell silent as he stopped the car, looking past her and out the window, a newfound seriousness in his eyes. She looked out of her window, too.
"Is that it?" The house was dark, lights turned off, windows closed. He fumbled in his jacket pocket, extracting a crumpled piece of paper and handing it to her. She read the address that was scribbled on it, looked back at the house. That was it.
She had to ask. "How…?"
"After Marshall's dad died, I told my mom I was ready to meet him. She gave me that." He gestured to the piece of paper in her hand. "To send him a letter or something. I don't think she was expecting me to just come up here and show up at his door." He sighed, looked away. Her piercing blue eyes were too much to handle right now. "Which is not what we're doing here, by the way."
"We're not?"
"I'm not really ready to meet him, Robin. I was just… lying to myself, that's what it was. The guy just walked away 30 years ago. What am I supposed to do? And it's 3AM." He shook his head. "I just wanted to see something, a part of him, you know, today?"
She nodded, and they both stared out the window, not saying anything for a couple of minutes. She knew this was hard for him. They hadn't really talked about it since that night at the museum, and to this day, she was the only one to know, the only one he had trusted with this incredibly important secret of his. The only one who was able to see this vulnerable side of Barney Stinson. Deep down, she knew it must've scared her, but it didn't. She looked down and took his hand, entwining her finger with his, the piece of paper now locked between their palms.
"You should send him that letter." He looked into her eyes again, and for a moment or maybe more, he didn't feel alone. That was the thing, with him and Robin. When he was with her, he never felt alone. And he knew he should've realized it months or maybe years before that, and maybe he did. But they fought feelings and they buried love, they resisted clichés and they rejected labels. That's what they did. That's who they were. And he still was. He was still not ready to acknowledge the fact that they could be in this together, but somehow in that moment, he felt like they were.
He shot another glance at the house, and then went back to looking at her. "I think I will." He smiled, and she squeezed his hand before leaving the piece of paper in his palm and letting go.
"So, you wanna stay here all night and smoke those cigars?"
"Scherbatsky, I thought you'd never ask."
January 20th, 2012.
Nothing had changed since the last time she was here, and still she felt like everything was different. Standing still at his doorstep, she thought about them frantically moving across his living room and into his bedroom, desperately trying not to break lip contact, the spur of a passion which had ended up leading her here, the night of his birthday, her spare key in her hand. She took in Barney's apartment, her willpower lacking as she glanced at his leather couch and his stormtrooper in the background. She looked away, this room suddenly having a whole other meaning for her, one she liked to keep to herself, a painful memory she somehow had found herself cherishing. She cautiously closed the door behind her, almost afraid someone would hear her. But no one could. He wasn't there.
She didn't know exactly what she was doing there. They told each other they were still friends, but they had been drifting apart since that November night, the one she feared she would never be able to forgive herself for. Somehow, she had managed to screw it up all over again, and the thing was, it made no sense. She knew it that night, when she had walked into MacLaren's and had broken his heart, and she knew it a month later, on that awfully cold night in Central Park, when she had realized she needed him to be there.
She walked across his living room, uncertain of what to do next. She looked around. She was surprised to notice there were still small traces of her, little things anybody else would probably miss. Her gaze stopped on his refrigerator door, still dented from that time she threw plates at him and they shattered against it. It was probably the only imperfect thing in his whole apartment, flawed, just like their relationship was.
Before even realizing it, she was walking into his bedroom, sitting on what for her would always be her side of his bed. She suddenly felt guilty, as if she had caught herself doing something she was ashamed of. She abruptly got up, she needed to get out of there. She took a piece of paper from one of his drawers, wrote something on it, left it on her – his – nightstand. She put her spare key next to it, a signature and a reminder she would not be able to do this again – walking into his apartment like that, without actually breaking in. She left, and until ten months later, the sound of that door closing behind her felt like the closest she had ever been to being done with Barney Stinson and their now countless years of history and unresolved feelings.
Later that night, Barney turned on the lights in his bedroom, a random girl giggling at his side. He spotted a piece of paper on Robin's – his – nightstand, and he let go of his new conquest and walked around the bed to reach for it.
"I didn't forget. Happy Birthday."
He squeezed her key in his fist until it hurt, and sent the bimbo home.
January 20th, 2013.
"Happy Birthday."
He was woken up by Robin's soft kisses trailing up his shoulder and neck, her body draped on top of his left side, her thigh between his. He slowly opened his eyes and looked down at her, both seeing and feeling her smile forming against his jaw line. She gave him one last quick kiss and settled her head in the hollow of his neck, while he closed his eyes for just a moment longer as he slid his left arm around her, tightening his hold.
"Hmm, thanks, baby."
She thought about distant times, when nicknames were banned from her relationships, especially from the one she had with Barney. She remembered trying to settle into something more conventional, allowing – mostly forcing – herself to slip a "honey" here and there when she was with her other boyfriends, the ones who had followed him; it never really quite fit. Now it just seemed normal, hearing it come out of his lips.
"Are you ready for our birthday sex marathon?"
"Please." He started kissing her, suddenly awake, slightly rolling their bodies so he was on top of her. Her hands were in his hair when she felt him parting away from her lips, and she opened her questioning eyes.
"Do you think, maybe, when we're done with this in, hm…" he seemed to think about it, "…seven to ten hours, we could I don't know, do something outside?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Why, Mr Stinson," she smiled, "are you suggesting we actually celebrate your birthday?"
He shrugged. "I don't know, I guess birthdays are not that dumb." She looked at him, knowing there was more to it. He picked up on her suspicious expression. "My father asked us to go over his house tonight." He conceded.
"Well then," she said as her fingers traced imaginary lines on his shoulders. "I guess we'd better get started." And as her lips reached for his, he was sure of one thing. Robin Scherbatsky surely knew how to celebrate his birthday.