Robin's wearing a black shirt and his head is swimming. Barney smiles as she turns around. What he loves about Scherbatsky is how she never takes herself too seriously. She'll take some stupid thing she's done - Robin Sparkles, Sir Scratchewan, any of it - and she'll turn it into a story that she can use to make other people laugh. To make other people love her.
Love. He's thought that word twice now. Three times. All the things he loves.
Four times.
Robin Sparkles. He loves Robin Sparkles. With her curly blonde hair and her long white dress and her gawky teenage angst. He's definitely in love with Robin Sparkles.
And Scherbatsky - their Scherbatsky - she's way more awesome than Robin Sparkles ever was. He's in love with Scherbatsky as well. From the little expression she pulls when she feels the heat from her first sip of scotch, all the way down to the way she always elbows him in the ribs when they play Laser Tag.
Barney's fingers inadvertently tighten on the button that administers his morphine and his eyes go very wide.
He's in love with morphine. It makes him feel like he used to feel when he was young and he made flimsy wooden barriers against the world. Now his barriers were two-feet thick and made of concrete; in normal circumstances, no sucker was getting through.
But the morphine makes him in love with the Robins, Sparkles and Scherbatsky.
And Robin's wearing a black shirt, which is unbuttoned enough to show the tiniest hint of boob.
"Suits and money and scotch," he murmurs. "And boobs."
Robin ruffles his hair, leaning over just enough so that he can see all the way down into that black shirt. "Sure you do, champ," she says.
He smiles. "Love you," he slurs.
"Right back at ya!" She chuckles.