A/N: I'm back! This is my first time I'm writing a Robin/Barney fic, and to be honest I'm really nervous about it, because of all the characters I write on, these two have the most unexplainable energy and they're just plain unpredictable, so I'm not 100% confident of this. Nevertheless I'm pretty proud of it, I would make it longer and less rushed but I was impatient(as I always am.) This will be a one shot and it's AU. Please give me constructive feedback, it would help me greatly. Thank you and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own HIMYM or any of the characters mentioned. All I own is the plot. :3

Run it back again

He calls her around midnight.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Can I come over?"

She lets him come over and gets out the scotch even before he asks for it, because he's Barney and he's her best friend, and he's much more important than the season of Grey's she has to go through. (Although really, did he really need to call her just when Meredith was on the verge of death? He owed her one, whatever he needed to absolutely come over for.) There's a knock on her door. "It's open!" Barney lets himself in, takes one look at the screen, and says, "she lives." Robin gapes at him, half relieved that Mer survives and half furious at Barney for spoiling her. Barney glances at Robin and gives a half-hearted smirk.

"Come on, Robin, you can't expect the show to kill of their main character. It would be like the world acknowledging that Canada is a real country, it's both impossible and ridiculous." Robin can't help rolling her eyes at the dig, but admits that he has a point(about the show and main character part, not Canada). She also knows he's stalling, so she sits him down and stares at him.

"Barney, what's up?" He falters slightly, even though it's a simple question.

"Nothing, what do you mean what's up, nothing's up, what's up with you?" He smiles weakly, the word vomit just spilling out uncontrollably. Robin glares, and he swallows. "Barney, I can tell when something's wrong. And so here, I ask you again: What's up?" Barney sighs, and looks away.

"Quinn and I broke up." Robin winces. She wasn't(unfortunately) unaware of the fact that Barney actually liked the girl.

"Barney, I'm so sor-"

"We broke up because of you," Barney interrupts, looking straight at her. Robin's jaw drops. She closes it, opens, closes again.

"Me?" She finally exclaimed, a look of nothing less than indignation on her face. "I haven't done or said anything at all that would cause your relationship to-"

"You didn't have to say anything," he cut her off again. Robin falls silent, half afraid of the unspoken. He takes a deep breath. "Quinn broke it off with me because she knew that I still feel… things for you. We had this whole argument about how I didn't like you in any other way than a friend way back when, but yesterday she just said she couldn't take it anymore and left. And Robin," Barney's pacing now, walking up and down in front of her and she wants to tell him to stop but she's afraid that if he did, she will never hear his words on the matter ever again. "Robin, I should've stopped her, I should've gone after her and I should be trying to convince her now that she's everything to me but I'm here at 2 in the morning, which they said nothing good ever happens after this hour, and to be honest I can't say things to her that I don't mean." Robin's breath catches. Basically, Barney, the heartbreaker jerk who shattered her heart probably even without meaning to, is pouring out his whole soul to her and she doesn't know how to respond, doesn't want her hopes raised only to be dashed down again. "Robin, I think we both know why I'm inside your apartment instead of being inside Quinn, and I think it's because I love you." There. Once Barney said it, he suddenly felt like he couldn't stop.

"I love you, I love you, I'm in love with you, and I guess the reason why I took things so far with Quinn is to see if you would do something about it because I'm just that crazy about you. I just want to try us again, go back to the past and run it again and Robin, please say something." Barney stops from his position of standing on top of her coffee table(when did he get up here?) and turns his attention to Robin, his hands intertwined with each other repeatedly as he fidgeted with them. Barney Stinson, nervous? Robin had only ever seen Barney this restless when he was about to meet Nora's parents. She felt her heart speed up at the thought that she, Robin Scherbatsky, was able to make Barney Stinson nervous and fidgety. She looked up at him from her place at the kitchen table. He looked so forlorn, so helpless, it nearly makes her want to say 'screw it' and propose to him right there and then but she remembers that he'll still Barney and she remembers the first time they tried to be Robin-and-Barney but they failed.

So like the insecure person she is(not) she asks," why? How do you know we're not going to fight and storm out on each other?" Because I'm burning with love and I'll do anything for you, he wants to say and god he's actually turning into Ted. Instead, he jumps down, takes her hand and carefully guides her to the couch like she's a delicate china doll. "We'll just need to talk, then, won't we?" Even as he's saying this he questions himself, but then she smiles, this small, accepting, loving smile and he knows she's willing to try and it's enough to make him believe in her, in them, and he tries but fails to stop the grin that spreads out on his face.

They do talk, and Robin tells him about her secret ambition as a child to be either a) a Jedi master(with a purple lightsaber) or b) a power ranger(and she's always wanted to be the pink one, despite the fact that she despises the color.)

Barney doesn't laugh at her, and actually agrees, saying that he can be the red ranger. And that's when she knows. That's when she knows she could tell him anything, anything in the whole damn world and she'd know he would take it seriously. She knows she never has to be scared to share anything with him because he'll never laugh at her. Sure, he'll laugh at Canada and he'll scorn her, but when it comes down to being raw with each other(and they both knew how good they both are at that) he'll never leave her in the dust. She grins brilliantly at him, suddenly, and declares, "I love you." Barney stares at her, a look of utter shock and unbelief, but it slowly spreads into this radiant beam as he says, "I love you too." And his words are so full of tenderness that she can't help the unexpected tears that spring to her eyes. He looks horrified then, frantically wiping the unshed tears away, apologizing the whole time. She laughs at him through her tears, pushing his hands away before grabbing them again almost immediately, and shaking her head fondly, says, "you're an idiot." Barney grins again for the umpteenth time that night and thinks to himself that if this is the way Robin makes him feel, he's pretty sure he can live with it for the rest of his life.

(In fact, he's not sure that he can live without.)

He doesn't tell her his theory about the red and pink ranger getting it on and eventually going out. They argue about his choice of lightsaber, he wants a double edged one, but Robin thinks a blue saber suits him better. It matches the color of his eyes, she thinks to himself. She sees the smirk on his face and immediately knows she accidentally said it out loud. As they continue bickering and she tells him how self-absorbed and pretentious he is, she suddenly realizes that she never told Ted about this stuff. Robin doesn't tell Barney this, knowing that he'll probably never stop gloating, but she also realizes that all the things Ted taught Barney in the stupid Robin101 class were all his own observations.

(And as they're making out on the couch, it hits her again how in love she is with him, just as he is with her.)