Parents

"I really hate you sometimes," Robin growled under her breath, as they stood in the kitchen together, washing the mountain of dishes left over from Thanksgiving dinner.

Well, she was washing. Barney was standing by the refrigerator, holding a dishcloth full of ice up to his brushed cheek and occasionally groaning.

"Oh what now?" He said, in an equally low tone. They did this sometimes, snapped at each other, when the others weren't around. They had an agreement to keep up appearances for Lily and Marshall, and especially around Ted, but that didn't mean it was easy for either of them. It was hard to go from boyfriend-and-girlfriend and a cycle of fights and make-up sex, to, well, nothing.

Robin huffed out an angry breath, scrubbing hard at a particularly stubborn dish. "What you said earlier."

"Oh," he said with a wry chuckle. "I know what this is about. This is about the marriage thing."

"Yeah," she admitted, peeling off her rubber gloves. "Yeah, the marriage thing." She mirrored his tone, turning to face him.

He shrugged, offering neither apology nor explanation, which drove her even crazier.

"It got to me, Barney. You know I don't want that, not now. But maybe later." He frowned and she pressed on with more certainty, whether for herself, or just to annoy him, she didn't know. "Definitely later. Yes, Barney, eventually I would like to get married." He looked a little green and she just started at him. "Seriously, you're saying you never want to get married?"

"Never," he said firmly. "And neither do you."

"Don't tell me what I want!" She raged at him. Then, when he shushed her, she took a step closer to him and lowered her voice. "Don't you dare tell me what I want! It's stupid to say never. You don't know what's gonna happen in the future. Dude, you could fall in love!"

He looked a little hurt at that, and his tone changed from playful to hostile. "And yeah, let's play that little scenario forward, Robin. Say I fall in love, with an awesome chick who's not going to leave the country in six months to work in Morocco!" He ignored her glare and pressed on. "The divorce rate in this fine country of ours is standing right now at fifty percent. That means I'm just as likely to end up a bachelor as I am to live out my life with this mythical woman. And this way there's no pesky alimony to pay."

She blinked at him. "God knows Barney, I never pegged you down as that kind of cold-hearted cynic."

He snorted. "Come on. It's not as though you want kids. So why get married? Marriage doesn't define how you feel about somebody. You define how you feel about somebody. You don't need a piece of paper to validate it." There was something a little more earnest in his voice, which placated her somewhat.

"Yeah," Robin managed, while she processed what he'd just said. "But maybe one day I'll change my mind. I mean, just because my childhood was pretty crummy, doesn't mean that I'd do that to my kid. I mean, haven't we learned anything today? From Mickey and Lily, I mean?"

Barney smiled sadly and leaned against the counter. Then softly, in a voice that almost didn't sound like his own, he began to recite a poem.

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you."

Robin sighed. "True that," was all she could say.

He pushed past her and grabbed a towel, making a start on wiping the wet dishes. "It's Larkin," he said, after couple of minutes of silence.

"Yeah, but we can't entirely blame them," Robin said thoughtfully, staring down into the sink, watching the rainbow reflections on the surface of the water. "Our parents, I mean. It's just as much our fault, letting ourselves be like this."

He shrugged, moving closer to her, muttering "Maybe", and she looked up at him, so bruised and vulnerable and open in that moment that she wanted to kiss him, and hold him, and tell him that breaking up had been a mistake.

Then he leaned forward and whispered in her ear:

"Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don't have any kids yourself."

She punched him on the arm instead.