A/N 1: This is the final chapter to the Barney and Robin piece. Stay tuned for an epilogue to wrap it all up. Thanks to everyone for bearing with me over the past month or so. This fan fiction stuff is exhausting!! Keep reviewing please! :)
A/N 2: There is a lot of changing in perspectives, especially in the second half of this chapter. I think it's pretty clear who's perspective you see at any given time, but if it's unclear then PLEASE review and I'll fix it. I don't have a beta, and I'm usually pretty good at catching problems, but I worry about this.
The Barney and Robin Piece
Part 3
It took Barney exactly two weeks to figure out that "what Robin wanted" was not exactly "what Robin really wanted." He was good with women's sex drives, but he was not good with women's feelings.
He should have realized that when Robin said "I want the real Barney" – aka: the womanizing cad that she'd met almost 5 years prior – she meant "I want real Barney I met on the outside, but I want the Barney you actually are on the inside."
Unfortunately for Barney, he wasn't fluent in women-speak. It was a language he should have learned from Ted or Marshall years before, but he'd never picked up an interest. He'd spent most of his time more interested with a woman's body language than he was with a woman's English language.
It was the day of Marshall's press conference. It started at 6pm, but he'd gotten out of work early and met with Robin for a drink or two before her big moment as a correspondent for her news station. They'd met at a bar near the CNN headquarters so she could easily transition to her work persona.
By the time Robin arrived, Barney was already one drink deep, and he had a scotch on the rocks waiting for Robin.
"Scherbatsky, it's about time you graced me with your presence," he said as Robin slipped onto the stool of the unfamiliar bar.
"I didn't realize that '4:00' meant actually 4:00," Robin confided.
"Scherbatsky, for you I always mean what I say."
"Including being monogamous?" Robin challenged. She instantly winced after touching upon such a sore subject. For nearly the past month, Barney's admission of monogamy had gone unaddressed.
Instantly, upon breaching the topic, Barney recalled the infuriating discussion he and Robin had had about his admission.
***
"Barney, it's not that I don't appreciate the sentiment," Robin had said the day after Barney admitted his monogamy. She was pacing across the living room of her and Ted's apartment, Barney's eyes trailing her the whole time. "It's just that I don't want you to have to give up who you are!"
Barney knotted his hands together, back and forth, left hand over right hand, then right hand over left hand. He wanted to tell Robin that he wouldn't be giving up anything by committing to her, that THAT was the reason why he was finally able to do it. But he couldn't fathom those words. It wasn't even that he couldn't string them together, but that he couldn't physically create those words in his mind that led him to believe that perhaps she was right.
"Give up who I am …" Barney said, stagnating the conversation, "that's not something I really see happening." He hoped that would placate Robin for the time being, allowing him to gather his thoughts until he could effectively tell Robin how he felt.
"Exactly," Robin exclaimed, jumping upon his inadequacy at explaining his point of view. "You don't want to change who you are, and I certainly don't want to be the person who forces you to change who you are. You'd just end up hating me. That's not what either of us want."
Barney wanted to scream. He wanted to jump up and down, and throw a temper tantrum until Robin sat down and actually listened to what it was he wanted. Instead of screaming, Barney just sighed. She didn't understand that he did want to change who he was for her. That he had already made a change for her.
She wouldn't understand that he was still himself – he was still lewd and crude, and most of all awesome – but he could be himself and still be with her and her alone. He wasn't defined by his womanizing, even though it was a big part of the old Barney Stinson. But that wasn't all there was to him. The best part about being with Robin for Barney was that he could change himself, yet not change who he actually was on the inside.
He wanted to explain all this to Robin, but he didn't know where to begin. Again, he was having a problem with producing the words necessary to explain himself.
That was getting Barney frustrated, and when Barney got frustrated, he lashed out.
"Well Robin, maybe I've only been monogamous because it seemed like a classier way to conduct myself than to go on a date with a guy, sleep with him, then still come crawling back to me at the end of the night for Round 2. Maybe I thought I was just being considerate. I'm sorry I was so horribly mistaken," he said, words dripping with sarcasm and spite.
Robin was visibly taken aback at this change in direction. She clearly didn't expect to be put on the defensive in this discussion. She seemed to be hoping for a quick and easy return to the normal operating procedures. But Barney was tired of "normal."
"Barney, I -." She stammered a bit, trying to string together a coherent sentence, something that clearly both of them were struggling to do. After a moment of painful anticipation, in which Barney eyed her, she collected herself. "I'm sorry I did that, I didn't realize it bothered you."
"Why would it, right?" Barney sneered, mockingly. "I'm just Barney, right? So desperate to get laid that I'd crave you even when I only got sloppy seconds?"
"Barney, you know I don't think of you like that."
"Really? Really Robin? Because that's what it seems like …" He paused, trying to keep his anger in check. He took a deep breath, Robin nervously and expectantly staring at him.
Suddenly Barney didn't feel like fighting anymore. If he went any farther, he'd start revealing things – feelings – that he just wasn't ready to. Yes, he loved Robin, but he'd never actually said it to her, besides that Mosbying conversation in the hospital after Ted's goat incident. Yes, he was an incredibly insecure person, but he'd never talked about it with her. He knew that she knew these things, but they had always remained unspoken, and Barney wasn't ready to say them just yet.
Sighing again, Barney signaled defeat. He began speaking again, tone deflated. "I guess it's not your fault, Robin. It's in our rules that we are just keeping this casual, so you have the right to sleep with who you want. And so do I," he continued, bravado starting to infiltrate his words, nourishing and strengthening his inner awesomeness, "and I've been missing out on the gullible bimbos for too long now … maybe Barney Stinson needs to get back in the game …"
A tentative and relieved smile crossed the lips of Robin Scherbatsky as she took his hand.
"I'm sure they've been missing you too, Barney," she said.
Barney suppressed a wince, and instead plastered on his patented cocky grin (who cared if it was fake). "Pssht, monogamy, who needs it, right?"
"Right," she said, enveloping her arms around his middle. She craned her head to his ear and whispered to him, "but I promise, no more sloppy seconds."
It was a compromise of sorts, the kind that left Barney feeling very ill at ease.
***
"Scherbatsky, for you I always mean what I say."
"Including being monogamous?" Robin challenged, wincing at the reference to their fight.
"Being monogamous?" Barney repeated almost without missing a beat, catching Robin's eye and winking seductively at her. "That's practically not in the Stinson gene pool. If it is, it's a recessive trait. And this man is all dominant." There, he could save face. Robin smiled, but only half heartedly.
Barney wanted so badly to read her. He thought he was able to for awhile there, but that was before she devastated Barney with her reluctance towards their relationship. His eyes met hers, but only briefly, and his window of opportunity was gone.
"Well that scotch isn't going to drink itself, Scherbatsky," he said, breaking the tension and changing the subject. This whole Robin situation was getting harder by the day – and he thought the hardest part would be the initial leap of telling her how he felt. Little did he know that Robin Scherbatsky was the most convoluted enigma on the planet. He bet that psychologists and rocket scientists couldn't figure her out. Ted deserved a fucking medal for wrangling her into his web, and riding that roller coaster for a year. Barney was only at the three month point – or was he still at zero? He couldn't tell.
It had been two weeks since that almost-hook up with the random girl (Grace? Stephanie?) from MacLaren's. He hadn't told anyone what happened, although he'd seen the looks Ted had given him since that night. Since then, he'd focused on trying to read Robin Scherbatsky and follow her lead. But two weeks of this was wearing him out emotionally and physically. He really couldn't take much more of pretending that he was okay with this arrangement, and he still couldn't figure out Robin's strict adherence to it. As it was, it took almost all of his energy to formulate a normal conversation with Robin at the bar, and he wasn't even sure if he was succeeding. Luckily for him on this front, Robin was once again proving how oblivious she was to this erratic behavior in Barney.
So Barney just kept it up a bit longer. She had a big few hours ahead of her, and it would be selfish of him to throw her off right then. But he couldn't hold out much longer. Maybe it was the time. Maybe it was now or never …
***
As Barney ordered another round of drinks for them (two beers, this time), and Robin wondered if a second drink was a good idea, she couldn't help but look around the bar. There were many other people there, some sharing a Happy Hour drink with coworkers, and some couples rendezvousing after a long day's work, but Robin noticed that many of the eyes in the room were drawn to her and Barney. Together, they possessed a magnetism that neither of them possessed on their own. They were in fact, as Barney might say, awesome squared.
Barney slid her beer towards her, grinning that puppy-dog smile that Robin loved – er, adored, and had slowly gotten used to over the past few months.
Moments like this made Robin so comfortable around Barney. They talked and bantered like normal, but they kept giving each other these quick loving – er, adoring – (ah, fuck it, loving) glances. Her "Bros by Day, Lovers by Night" analogy was getting blurred more and more as each day progressed, and she was almost not freaking out about it anymore. Almost.
But the fact remained that this was Barney. Yes, this was a slightly different, slightly more mature Barney, but he was still a very dangerous beast as far as her heart was concerned.
It was like with her dogs. Not that Barney is like my dogs, she actively thought, catching herself in her own analogy. But she continued anyway. It was like with her dogs. Even though her dogs were well trained and housebroken and primarily safe to be around, they were still animals at heart, and had the potential to hurt Robin if the wrong trigger went off.
Barney was also an animal at heart, and he could also really hurt Robin if the wrong trigger went off. The difference is that the injuries that Robin could sustain from Barney were infinitely more monumental and scary than any injuries she could sustain from her dogs. Yes, she was pretty sure she loved him, but Robin was also afraid of him.
"Scherbatsky," Barney said, breaking her from her thought process.
"Wha -? What was that? Sorry," she spazzed.
"Nothing," he said quickly. Then he tensed up, visibly struggling to get something out. He sighed audibly, trying to relax his tense shoulders. He suddenly looked very small, like a child caught doing something he wasn't supposed to. After a moment, he continued. "Nothing, except … I just wanted to talk to you about something."
Suddenly, Robin remembered why they were there in the first place. "Wait! What time is it?"
"Um, about …" Barney paused as he looked at his watch, "5:15?"
"SHIT! Shit, I've gotta go. I have to be at CNN for hair and makeup in five minutes. We'll talk afterwards? You're going to MacLaren's, right?"
He swallowed, straightened his tie, and darted his eyes away, clearly flustered. Was it from whatever he wanted to talk about, or Robin's sudden and spastic departure?
"Yeah, I'll meet you upstairs in the apartment first. What do you think, like 7:30? 8?"
"Let's go with 8. I'll have some follow up work to do here first."
"Okay then," he said. "Good luck with the broadcast. Not that you need it, because obviously you're gonna be legen – wait for it –"
She shut him up with a good hard kiss, then hurried out the door, hearing Barney shout "dary!" as she pushed the heavy door open.
Robin trotted down 59th Street towards the building, and her thoughts returned to Barney.
The past two weeks with him were about the happiest she'd had in a while. At least, when they were together they were. When they were apart, Robin found herself thinking about him more and more. She was jealous when he womanized in MacLaren's, and her heart wasn't at all in the last two dates she'd had with other guys. Did she seriously just think to herself that she loved his dopey smile? Who was she turning into?
As Robin went through the revolving door of the building, she realized that it wasn't a question of "if" she could let Barney hurt her anymore. It was too late for that. She was too far gone.
By the time she got to the security guard, entering her credentials into the system, she was almost in tears.
She was in love with Barney Stinson.
In love.
At the elevator, she was already trying to push it out of her mind and pull herself together – this press conference was too big and too important. She couldn't ruin it with her stupid emotions.
She was in love with Barney Stinson.
Not like.
Not adore.
In love.
When she glided into her makeup chair (2 minutes late, but who's counting), she was in Robin Scherbatsky, award-deserving journalist, mode. Her smile was as plastered on as her makeup was.
She was in love with Barney Stinson.
That frightened her to no end.
***
After Marshall's inspiring press conference, Robin had to deal with a lot of logistical crap that she'd forgotten about in her past few stints as an anchor. Being a field reporter was not a fun gig, and she was, quite possibly for the first time, grateful for her position as an anchor for Come On, Get Up New York!. It took a bit longer to get out of there than she'd anticipated, and she also experienced frustration trying to get a cab to take her the 15 blocks to her and Ted's apartment.
She worried that Barney had already gone down to MacLaren's when she strolled into her apartment at 8:30, but there he was, sitting on her couch, alone. For a split second, she once again got to see the inner Barney, and this time it was not a pretty sight. It was only a glance, but he seemed nervous, broken, and exasperated, head down and staring at the half-empty beer he clutched in his hands. Before she could even process the scene, his mask was back on as he jumped up to greet her.
"There you are Scherbatsky. I was just about to call the cops to figure out what happened to you."
"Sorry, Barn, it just took a bit longer to get things done than I would have liked. You didn't have to wait for me – I would have met up with you and everyone else at MacLaren's."
"That's okay, I didn't mind waiting," he said, allowing a trace of vulnerability to enter his tone. His eyes had a bit of a pleading look to them as they met with Robin's. "And, you know, I just wanted to talk to you about something first …"
"Okay okay, that's right," Robin said, momentarily flustered. "Let me just go get changed and washed up first, okay? I feel a bit like death right now from all the lights and the heat of the crowd, and as awesome as the suit makes me look, I'm gonna have to beg off from suiting up tonight if you don't mind," she said, sidling up to him and kissing him softly on the lips to convince him.
"For once, I promise not to fight on the suiting up rule, Scherbatsky. Go ahead, I'll wait."
Robin hesitantly left Barney's side and crossed the apartment to the bathroom. As she quickly prepared for her shower, a knot formed in her stomach, and tightened more and more. What was wrong with Barney? He'd been mostly normal while at the bar before the press conference. Or at least … he'd seemed normal. No, that wasn't right. Now that she reflected on it, he wasn't normal at all. Nor had he been normal in a long time. That ease and comfort that she had felt around Barney for most of the time they had been together had been conspicuously missing in the past few weeks. And Robin was so oblivious that she hadn't noticed until just now. And now Barney wanted to "talk." Uuuuuugh, Robin thought, after she'd been in the shower for as long as she could. Time to face the music.
Slowly, slowly, Robin blow dried her hair and applied her makeup while standing awkwardly in her bathrobe. She was stalling. She hated heart to heart conversations. It was one thing to have had them with Ted, but Barney was a different animal entirely.
Why did she keep comparing Barney to an animal?
Finally, when she felt that she couldn't hide anymore, she trudged out of the bathroom, eyes downcast, to face Barney in the living room. As soon as she raised her eyes, her worst fear was realized.
INTERVENTION.
Fuck.
***
"Barney …?" he heard Robin meekly call from the living room. "What's going on?"
Clutching his beer in his right hand, he emerged from the kitchen and leaned against the dividing wall with his left. Here we go, he thought. Time to face the music.
"Robin," he started, his voice cracking just the tiniest bit. "This is the only way I think I can get you to listen."
The look on her face was one of apprehension and dread. She sat herself on the couch and took a deep breath. "Well … ?"
She wasn't going to make this easy on Barney. He could spend ten minutes just getting out the three-to-five words he wanted to say, or he could just break the ice and say it. Barney Stinson was a man of action, there would be no Tedding out about this. He sat down next to Robin on the couch, grabbed her hands, and looked her square in the eyes. There was no backing down from this, and even though Barney was nervous about this intervention, he was ready. It was time.
"I'm in love with you."
Instantly her eyes widened - in either shock or horror, Barney could not tell. "Barney, I … I don't know what to say."
Barney swallowed, trying to get the saliva pumping back into his mouth so he could say what he wanted to say. There was no way to tactfully put this, so he decided that for the rest of this conversation, he was just going to be honest with himself. If unsavory feelings came out, they came out. If he got hurt, he got hurt. If he hurt her, he hurt her. This was no time to save face. It was now or never.
"Well, Robin, to be honest, if you don't know what to say now, after three months of this, I don't know what to say to you anymore. I can't go on like this."
"Barney." She eyed him skeptically.
"I'm dead serious. I wouldn't use the intervention banner for just anything."
"What do you want me to say, Barney?"
"I want you to be honest with me. For once. Because goddamn it Robin I can't read you." His voice was shaking, growing angrier by the word. "I've been trying here, I've been killing myself, trying to give you what you want. But you know what, Robin? I've got no fucking idea what you want, because you are the fucking queen of mixed messages. You know that?" His eyes shot daggers at Robin, expressing the hurt and pain that was behind each and every word.
Robin was almost paralyzed by the vitriol his short monologue. She had no idea he carried this much pain because of her. She never intended to hurt him, she never intended to string him along. She was just trying to figure out her own screwed up mind. She couldn't look at him, and instead focused her gaze on her wringing hands as she tried to rationalize her thoughts.
"Honest. Okay, I can be honest," she finally murmured. She turned her eyes back to Barney. He deserved her honesty. "I want to love you Barney. Sometimes, I even think that I am in love with you," she added, recalling her sentiments earlier that night. "But I can't just let myself go enough for that. Because, underneath it all, underneath all the chemistry, the friendship, the bro-ness, and the feelings I've developed for you, deep down, I'm really, truly, afraid of you."
The look on Barney's face was unlike one Robin had ever seen before. It was horrified and disgusted and crushed all at the same time.
"Afraid … afraid? … afraid?" he stammered. "Why on earth would you be afraid of me?"
"Because you're Barney," she exclaimed. "You've been so great to me throughout all of this, but this whole time I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. You've never been in a relationship with someone this long, and I keep waiting for you to run and leave me hurt. I'm petrified of it."
Their eyes met, and Robin's look of desperation met with Barney's look of disgust.
"I thought you understood me better than that, Robin. What have I ever, EVER, done to hurt you?" Barney was trying valiantly to choke down bitter tears that were stinging at the back of his eyes. How had he allowed himself to be so weak that that one word – afraid – could bring him to tears?
"Nothing, Barney, but that was when we were just friends, and I –"
"Thought that somehow I'd miraculously change my opinion of you once I slept with you?" Barney interrupted. "Is that it? Because newsflash here, Robin, I did change my opinion of you after I slept with you. I went from thinking of you as my best friend to thinking of you as my girlfriend. And it seems like I was wrong on both counts now."
"No, no that's not it –"
Barney couldn't sit and continue listening to this. He had more to say. He had never been so insulted in his life. He'd done a lot of bad things over the years to a lot of women, but he thought his friends knew him better than that. He thought that Robin, of all people, knew him better than that. Jumping from the couch, and pacing around the room, he continued.
"Well guess what Robin, here's something else that you should know, since you're so afraid of me," hostility was escaping from him unfiltered. He was finally allowing himself to let go of the anger and frustration he had been feeling for months.
"In my life, as you know, I've slept with over 200 women – 204 to be exact. I'm going to assume that you feel that this track record makes you justified in your fear." Barney really stressed the word "fear", elongating it and filling it with spite, allowing it to hang in the air momentarily for Robin's consideration.
He continued, his rage slightly more in check, "Well, here's the truth, whether you want to hear it or not. In having slept with 204 women, virtually all of them were worthless to me. They never gave me any reason to stay with them, and consequently, I had no desire to stay with them beyond one or two easy hookups. There were no feelings involved. They never challenged me. They never made me think that maybe, just maybe, there was more to me than being 'that guy' - that egocentric, womanizing jerk who had gotten them into the sack. They never made me face the Barney Stinson outside of that persona, and that was exactly what I wanted. My life was awesome. Until the one exception in those 204 women showed me that I was really just being pathetic." Barney paused, anger ebbing momentarily, as he grew aware that he had revealed some of his most deep-seeded insecurities, and was summoning his strength to reveal the deepest one of all.
"You were the exception, Robin. The one exception who made me want to stay, who made me want to be a better person, yet still valued the person I was." Barney's anger began to rise once again. He practically spit out the final sentences of his monologue, the decibel levels in his voice rising, "Or so I thought. I thought you were that exception, Robin. And now you're just showing how wrong I was. I mean, should I have even bothered?"
Robin stood up to face Barney. He wasn't hearing her. He wasn't understanding her. He was jumping down her throat without listening to her rationale. Now his accusations and anger were getting her blood boiling. She wasn't going to back down without a fight.
"No. No, no, no, no, Barney, you do not get to play the martyr on this. I am not the villain here, and you do not get to do this. You're taking one little word and blowing it completely out of proportion! Barney, you know I'm afraid of commitment – that's a feeling you can relate to! I'm sorry your fear of commitment subsided before mine did, but you are literally overreacting here."
Barney's eyes widened in surprise at Robin's counterattack. But he had one of his own. "Bullshit. I'm calling bullshit on this whole 'I'm so afraid of commitment, that's why I don't want a real relationship with Barney' crap."
"Whoa, hold on there – where do you get off doing that?"
"Two words, one name: Ted. Mosby."
"Ted? Why are you bringing Ted into our relationship?"
"Trust me, Robin, under any other circumstances I wouldn't want to," Barney chided. "But isn't it obvious why I'm bringing him into this now?" His eyes pierced at her, still angry, but perhaps not quite as violently so as before. His goal was no longer to throw daggers at her and destroy her, but to make her see his point, his side. He still loved her, after all.
But Robin wasn't playing into his hand. "No, Barney it's not. And it's not appropriate in this situation at all." Robin flopped back on the couch, defiantly, her back to him. Barney crossed the room to get nearer the couch, but did not dare to sit on it. He willed Robin's eyes to meet his, and he didn't speak again until they did. Once her eyes locked into his icy gaze, he continued, softly.
"You're not afraid of commitment, Robin. You're afraid of commitment with me. And, as you've already made perfectly clear tonight, you're afraid of just … me."
"So let me get this straight," Robin said, measuredly. "I want to make sure I understand you correctly here. You're saying that because I dated Ted for a year, it has something to do with our situation now?"
"Well, doesn't it?"
Robin was exasperated with Barney's line of questioning. Her relationship with Ted from two years ago had absolutely nothing to do with Barney. Nothing at all. She expected it to be thrown in her face eventually, but now that it had been, it was pretty fucking painful. Just like the rest of this argument had been painful as Barney threw around phrases like "love" and "best friend" and "girlfriend," and had basically called her a mistake. She needed to defend herself, but she was so taken aback by this whole fight that she didn't really even know how to do it. It didn't help that Barney was barely letting her get a word in edgewise.
"Barney, for godsakes, you are not Ted –"
"You're damn right I'm not Ted. I don't look like Ted and I sure as hell don't act like Ted. I'm not going to drag you up to the altar and move you to the suburbs and force you to have my 2.5 kids. That's Ted's MO, not mine. All those reasons you had to break up with Ted two years ago are exactly the reasons why you should not be afraid of me now. I don't love you for the potential you have to be the future Mrs. Stinson. I love you for the Ms. Scherbatsky you are right now. And if you can't see that, if you can't appreciate that, if you're still actually afraid of me, then Robin we need to stop this right now. Because I deserve better than to be with a woman who is actively afraid of me. I deserve better than to be with a woman who can't see past my … well, my past, and to see the person I actually am. Because the person I actually am is pretty damn awesome," he finished, with a trademark smile.
His tone had finally calmed. He had reached a state of peacefulness. He'd let it all out – all of his anxieties, his anger, and his feelings. Finally, after doing all of that, Robin's response didn't matter quite as much, because he knew he was right. If Robin couldn't understand him, then she wasn't worthy of him after all.
Robin blinked. And blinked some more. She was literally speechless. Finally something had clicked. He was right.
He was right.
She'd been going through the past three months as if Barney had to prove something to her. As if Barney wasn't really good enough for her. But he was right.
He was right.
The past three months had shown that Barney was indeed the better man here. Barney accepted Robin for who she was – all of the things about her that were quirks or inadequacies to other men, Ted included, were things that made Barney Stinson love her. Other men might have been afraid of Robin, but Barney was in love with her. Barney was right that he was nothing like Ted – and that this fundamental difference is what made Barney perfect for her.
He was right.
It was time to take the big leap.
"I love you too, Barney."
He eyed her suspiciously. It was warranted after the fight they'd just had. She tried again.
"I mean it, you know. I really do. I just get … scared, you know?"
"I know," he said, still not quite ready to let go. "You made that perfectly clear already, didn't you?"
"I didn't mean it that way. I really didn't. I guess I'm not really afraid of you. I'm afraid of me. I'm afraid of letting myself be completely and totally happy. I'm afraid of letting go. I'm afraid to just take that freaking metaphorical leap that Lily was blathering on and on about. And most of all …" she paused, glancing vulnerably at Barney, their eyes meeting tenderly for the first time in weeks.
Robin sighed, and let down her final barrier. Softly, she finished, "I'm afraid that if I open up and let you in, I'll do something to screw it up, and then we'll both end up getting hurt."
Barney let the last comment process, then the devilish grin that Robin knew so well crept up on his face. "Yeahhhhh you did," he said, and extended his hand for a high five.
Robin, realizing her double entendre (only Barney would have caught it the first time through), laughed heartily, relieving the tension that had permeated the room in the past hour or so.
Barney finally crossed the threshold of space they had constructed between them, both physically and emotionally, and sat on the couch beside Robin and enveloped his arms around her.
"Scherbatsky, for the first time in my life, getting hurt is a risk I'm willing to take. Are you with me?"
She felt the tickle of his breath against the hair near her ear. She closed her eyes and recalled the thousands of touches and breaths from Barney that she had accumulated over the past three months, and realized that she wanted those to be only a tiny fraction of the number she'd accumulate in her lifetime.
"Yes," she said simply, softly. "I'm with you."
"Good," he said.
Barney continued to hold Robin in silence for a few minutes as they let themselves recover from the emotional rollercoaster they'd been on. It was Barney who finally broke the spell.
"Maybe we –," he stopped for a moment to clear his throat. "Maybe we should get downstairs. The others will be wondering what happened to us."
"Yeah, you're right," Robin said, immediately springing from his arms. "I'd better go get dressed."
Barney's hands traced Robin's arms as she left him, ending at her hands and giving them a soft, supportive squeeze. Their eyes met once more and they shared a single expression: teary, sparkling, and hopeful.
"Robin Scherbatsky, I love you."
"Barney Stinson," she said with a grin, "I love you too."
"I'd love you even more if you'd let me watch you get changed though …"
"Barney!"
***
"Ready to go, Barn?" she asked five minutes later as she grabbed her purse and headed towards the door.
"Always ready to grace MacLaren's with my awesomeness. And have you noticed, Scherbatsky, that I am still wearing a suit, even though it's been consistently in the 90s and 100s for weeks on end? I hope you're ready to do that thing that you agreed to, because Labor Day is approaching faster than a runaway zamboni."
"The summer's not over just yet," she said, grinning ear to ear, pulling open the door for both of them to leave. "Hey," she pondered, stopping in the doorway and turning towards Barney, who nearly crashed into her. "What would you have done if we'd broken up?"
"For the bet?" he asked nonchalantly. He winked evilly at her as he put his hand on the small of her back to lead her down the stairs towards MacLaren's. "Well, a bet's a bet, Scherbatsky, you know that."