did you know that, by law, every person must write at least one fanfic based on a song from hamilton?

Ted's future wife leaves the bar when the rest of them do, but follows Barney to the corner instead of down the subway steps. "Where are you headed?" she asks, shifting her purse up her arm. "We can split a cab."

He's really not in the mood. For the past couple of weeks, he's had to deal with Ted's swooning and sighing and Marshall and Lily's increased Marshall-and-Lily-ness; he's had it up to his ears with monogamy. He can't lose all his friends at once, especially without an easy lay to take the edge off. This chick is definitely hot, but off limits.

Besides, she was making fun of him earlier.

So Barney grunts disinterestedly and tries to hail a cab. It's late, and there isn't one on the block.

"Are you ignoring me?" she asks.

He keeps ignoring her.

"Wow," she says. "What are you, twelve?" She sounds like she's holding back laughter, and he looks out of the corner of his eye to see. She is.

It should make him mad, but it kind of doesn't. "Where do you live, anyway?" he asks, giving in.

"Park Slope."

"Wow," he says, barking out a laugh. "Good luck finding a cab to drive you out to Brooklyn at —" he checks — "one forty-five AM. I'd offer to let you crash at mine, but it'll cost you." He winks at her, leers, not really meaning it: Ted's girl, and all that.

"Wow," she echoes, "outright calling sex with you a cost to be borne. That's a level of honesty I wasn't expecting."

"Wha —" he's flabbergasted, then outraged. "That's — Slander! Lies! I'll have you know I'm the best you'd ever have —" As he sputters, she's laughing, and waves down a cab. "not that you'll experience it, ever, since you're a terrible person," he continues, raising himself to his full height and glowering.

Sitting in the cab, she grins up at him. It's not a mocking smile, smug, or haughty. She's just… smiling. Like she knows she's landed a good one. "Get in," she laughs, scooting across the bench.

Barney does. "81st and 1st," he grumbles, closing the door behind him. Then: "Stop laughing."

"Oh, come on," she says. "You gave me an opening. Ted said I should feel free to let you have it. He said, and I quote, 'it's the only way to deal with Barney's ego problem.'"

"Problem? My ego problem? The only problem I have is — actually, nothing. I can't even think of a hypothetical problem to use as an example, because I. am. awesome. Stop laughing," Barney adds, because she's laughing at him, her long dark hair falling over her shoulders, her cheeks flushed.

"You can't be for real," she says.

"Oh, I'm as real as it gets, baby," he leers at her, raising his eyebrows and smirking and forgetting for a second she's Ted's girl and not someone he can hit on in good conscience. He drops the smirk, but she's still grinning over at him, shaking her head, and he knows he has an opening. "Ted's," he says, not really meaning to say it aloud — he's reminding himself — and she looks confused so he adds, recklessly, making it a sentence: "Ted's okay and all, but he's boring. I, on the other hand…"

Damn. He did it again. She's Ted's, he won't take his best friend's girl, he knows better. But she's hot and she's looking at him with flushed cheeks and leaning towards him in the back of the cab, her whole body turned to face him in the seat, and he knows he could. Hand on the back of the seat, lean in, drinks at his place, gone in the morning. She'd be good, he could tell that at a glance; it'd be dirty and fun, and she wouldn't get crazy and clingy the next morning, she doesn't seem the type: she'd be gone the next day with no drama, just the good memory of a good time. The perfect one night stand. She'd do it, she wants him — is grossed out by him, but who cares, look at her mouth, her cheeks —

But she's Ted's. Ted's future wife. The mother of his future children. Ted's, Ted's, Ted's.

"Are kind of sleazy and full of it?" she prompts, finishing his half-forgotten sentence.

"I'm hurt," he says. "That was very unkind." He clears his throat delicately.

She laughs, as he knew she would.

"You don't want Ted," he says. It keeps happening, the prospect of a hookup is too strong. He won't. Ten minutes until his apartment, he won't.

"I like Ted," she says, mildly, leaning against the back of the seat. She pulls up one of her legs, folding it on the seat. Her knee nearly touching him.

"You know what Ted likes? Old stuff. Coins. Buildings. Not being well dressed. Brunch." He thinks for a second. "Frank Lloyd Wright."

"I love brunch," she says, the challenge in her voice matching his. She bites her lip to stop smiling. "Frank Lloyd Wright was a genius."

"Ted's boring," he says.

"And you're not?" She brushes her hair behind her shoulder.

He hadn't expected her to pick up the thread; he hides his smile with a smirk. "I don't like to be bored, either."

"I'm not like you," she says, leaning towards him in the back of the cab — just an inch, two inches, enough that she might not notice but enough that her hair spills forward again, shiny in the lights. Make a move, his entire brain, body, is telling him. Touch her wrist, thumb on her pulse, she'll look down and then up, she won't say no. Her eyes are bright; she wants it too.

But Ted, Ted, Ted. "You're just like me," he says. Too much like him: she hasn't touched him and he wants her, and he isn't sure how they got to this point. Who is putting the moves on who? The tease, the pulling away, all her smiles and playing with her hair…

"I'm better than you," she says, her voice low in her throat, brushing her jaw and neck with her hand as she fixes her hair yet again, her eyes dark and shining.

He forces himself to swallow, and it means she's won: she laughs, bright and happy. "Ted was right about you," she says, and he wants to be angry with her but she isn't laughing at him.

"I'm right about you," he says, challenging.

"Maybe," she allows, and he'd expected a denial and feels something warm at the admission. She smiles again — not the teasing smile, but something small and quick. He wants to win. And: He wants to lose. He wants to see what that would be like.

But Ted.

So it's good that this is Ted's soulmate, because that means… What is he thinking? That he wants to be friends with this chick?

It's too bad. Barney doesn't allow himself many regrets, but he thinks it now. It's too bad. If he'd seen her any other place, any other night… Then he'd never see her again, come morning. So maybe this is good, maybe for once Ted doesn't have bad taste, maybe he can see her again. Maybe.

She'll be wasted on the suburbs.

Oh well.

"81st and 1st," says the cabbie. Something shifts as he pulls over, as they both look towards the front seat; the lighting feels brighter, the air cooler.

Barney takes out his wallet, pulls out extra. "Park Slope," he says," handing up the cash and sliding towards the door. The cabbie mutters under his breath. Ted's wife rests her arm on the back of the seat, the seat he just vacated, and watches him exit the cab.

He starts to close the car door, stops and reopens it, ducks his head back into the cab. "What's your name again?"

"Are you serious?" she asks, frowning but also smiling a little.

"Why would I have paid attention before now?" he asks innocently.

"Why are you paying attention now?" she counters. He keeps waiting, and after a second she braces her hand on the backseat, leans towards the door like she's going to tell him a secret. "Robin," she says, articulating it carefully. "Robin Sherbatsky."

"Robin," he repeats, looking at her as she looks at him. He steps back; she sits up. "I think I'll be seeing more of you, Robin Scherbatsky." He says it like a threat or a promise.

"Hooray," she mutters, just loud enough to hear, biting her lip to not smile.

Barney bites back his laugh, shuts the cab door, and sends Robin on her way to Brooklyn.