Liar!

Good evening, dear Inspector,

Lovely evening, my dear.

I know this man, my friends,

His name's Inspector Javert!

So don't believe a word he says

Cos none of it's true-

This only goes to show

What little people can do!

-Little People, Les Miserables

Cloudless

September 2027

"I'll buy you one for your birthday if you like, buddy,"

"Really, Uncle Barney?" Luke asks, eyes wide.

"Course! You think I wouldn't let my favourite bro go without a motorbike?"

He rubs Luke's arm affectionately, "What's on the next page?"

It's a Saturday night and Barney and Robin are round chez Mosby. Luke is giving Barney an in-depth analysis of his collage book, which is full of photos he's cut out from newspapers and magazines, stuck in the book and annotated with his own labels, doodles and drawings. It's standard nine-year-old boy stuff- baseballers, footballers, cars, motorbikes, cowboys, cartoon characters, fire engines, animals, toys- but Luke is immensely proud of the ongoing project.

Penny is sitting on the floor watching them, and abruptly asks, "Can I talk to you outside for a second?"

Barney and Luke look up from the book. Penny's eying Barney seriously.

"Sure," he shrugs, "Gimme a sec, Lukebox,"

He nudges Luke off his legs and follows Penny out of the den. Once they're in the hall, Barney sits down on the third-to-bottom stair and pats the spot next to him for her to sit down beside him.

"What's up?" he asks sympathetically, pulling a face, "Is your dad being a pain agai-"

"You need to stop," Penny demands.

"Come again?"

She doesn't sit down beside him and remains standing. Above him, over him. Power. Penny folds her arms and Barney can't help but notice the buds protruding from her chest. She's growing up, and that scares him slightly. Barney shivers, feeling oddly intimidated.

"Stop telling Luke you're going to do something or buy him something when you're not," Penny says firmly, "He believes it, you know, and you're gonna let him down. I spent, like, five years thinking you were gonna get me a pony- and you didn't, and you're not gonna get Luke a motorbike. And it's not right that you promise us stuff when you don't mean it,"

Barney stares at her.

"Dad never even calls you out on it and Mom only tells you moral stuff and...Aunt Lily's the only person who tells you how much of a jerk you are but you. I think you think it's some big joke and people won't care because everybody likes you...I don't even know. Luke gets upset but then he forgets you're the one who let him down, it's so annoying. He's like Dad; he thinks you're so great, he hasn't worked out what you're like,"

Barney can't process all of this. He doesn't entirely grasp what she's saying, and all he can think is that he wishes Penny was crying. When kids cry you can shove a candy bar in their mouth and cuddle them and shush them 'til they shut up. Or, he wishes Penny was punching him- she's always been the sort of kid who hits when she's angry, even before that bad few months she had when Tracy was sick.

"What d'you mean, what I'm like?" he asks cluelessly. Penny's body changing as she grows up is scary (eugh, he feels sick even at the words 'her body changing') but this, this change where she sees through him and she's accusing him and she doesn't trust him- this is worse.

"You know," she shoots back, because Uncle Barney may act like an idiot sometimes but Penny knows he isn't. He's observant and prying and manipulative, and he thinks differently and three steps ahead of other people. "That you like...messing with people because...I don't even know, you think lying's fun. Mom says you're a patholo-whatsis, you believe what you say even if it isn't true- but come on, you shouldn't break your promises to kids. Everybody knows that. D'you know how many times I cried cos you didn't get me something you said you would? And it's the same with Luke only he doesn't realise. And Dad's...because he's in love with you or whatever he never says anything,"

"What?"

"Dad, he acts like he gets you; like he loves you but you're, like, exasperating him. But he doesn't get you, he still thinks you're the coolest guy and you're there to come in and be funny. Dad and Luke, they're...smitten by you, something dumb like that. After, like, thirty years, Dad still doesn't get that you can actually really hurt people,"

"Oh, he gets it," Barney mumbles.

Penny was getting used to- and enjoying- him gaping and asking dumbfounded questions, so this response throws her.

"Well...not enough!" she splutters back, "'I'll buy you that' or 'I'll take you here' and you know you're not going to, you just like getting our hopes up so we think you're so fantastic, but really it's the opposite, it makes me think you're a fake and you get fun out of screwing with our heads. And one day Luke's gonna realise it too-"

"I do not get fun out of screwing with your heads!" he shouts back, "I don't screw with you heads; you're exaggerating and you know it. Stop making out like I'm some kind of sicko!"

Penny can tell that he wants her to hit him. Hitting's what little kids do when they don't know why their angry or they can't work out how to say it. Hitting's easy for the kid and the adult, but Penny isn't a little kid anymore, she knows why she's angry at him and she knows how to say it.

"Stop lying to us," she replies coldly.

Barney hates how she isn't shouting and he is. It makes him look like the baby, the pathetic one, the one of the defence. The one in the wrong.

"Actually, the lying isn't the worst; adults lie to kids about the Tooth Fairy and tonnes of stuff. Breaking your promises to us is way worse,"

"I'm not...I don't know what you're trying to tell me I am, but I'm not it. You're getting carried away," Barney answers scornfully. He's the adult, she's the kid, she's trying to wind him up and he's better than that. Because he doesn't lie to them...well, not seriously, anyway. When he says he'll do stuff or buy them things it's goofing around, right? They're all in on the joke.

Penny answers his thought. "Everyone thinks you're this big kid, but if you truly were you'd know that kids believe it when adults make promises. Especially if you're..." she winces, as if saying something nice about him is difficult, "Fun and cool, like we think you are most of the time, like Dad thinks you are,"

Does he mess them around on purpose? Does he like promising them stuff and not living up to it? Barney doesn't think he does. He loves them. But then again, he's world-class at hurting people he loves, isn't he? And he's king when it comes kidding himself about the reasons why he does things.

"I don't know how Aunt Robin puts up with it," Penny continues, interrupting the awkward silence (thank God she does, because Barney might have be pondering for hours), "Does she just roll her eyes like she does when you lie to us?"

"I don't lie to her,"

Penny snorts coldly. "Yeah, right,"

"I don't," he says sharply, looking her in the eye, "Haven't lied to her since our wedding day. Ask Ted if you don't believe me,"

"I think I will. Because I don't."

"I promised I'd always be honest with her and I've kept that, okay?" he snaps.

"Haven't you been listening?" Penny scoffs, because he thinks he's their best friend or whatever, and he still lies to them and lets them down, so he must be the same with Aunt Robin. Maybe he's even more flaky and deceitful and unreliable with Aunt Robin, "You don't keep promises,"

"What would you know about my marriage?" Barney spits. If he thinks that's his ace card, however, it isn't.

"You think you're so close to us but you've got no idea about anything serious and how to...how to be with people, and if you're the same to Aunt R-"

"Hey, what's up you two?" asks Ted, entering the hall cheerily from the kitchen clutching a tray of nachos. Noting that they're both looking rather fierce, he adds, "Pen, are you being nice?"

"See! See what I mean, it's always me first, it doesn't occur to him that the magical Uncle Barney is ever in the wrong!" Penny protests, talking to them both. This proves it exactly! Penny feels like the only person who can see through Uncle Barney. Sometimes Dad acts like he does, but he doesn't, he...

"What are you talking about?" Ted laughs, ruffling her hair, "Come into the den if you want nachos,"

He gives Barney a what's up? Kids, eh? glance, and elbows the den door open. Once he's gone, Barney smirks nastily. "Oh, I see. This is just about you and Ted. You're jealous cos I'm his best friend,"

"Yes, because everything's about you and how much everybody loves you," Penny snarks, and feels quite proud of this retort.

"Stop it," he growls through gritted teeth.

"You con us and then you say it isn't your fault," she accuses.

"I don't c-"

"You don't have to watch Luke get his hopes up and then be let down and then forget that you're the one who did it," Penny snarls, but firmly, because this a fact not an accusation, "Leave him alone and stop messing with him,"

She folds her arms again in a final sort of way, jutting her chin out. And Barney hates that what he thinks next is- Thank God she doesn't know about my Mom lying to me. Thank God she hasn't said anything about when I was a kid and I always thought my dad would come back to me. Because there was a long time when he wasn't so self-analytical and weak, when those thoughts wouldn't have occurred to him. Because if Penny were to say either of these things to him Barney would do what he's been wanting her to do; start kicking stuff or start crying.

Penny isn't going to dash off to ensure that she gets the last word because again, that would make it look like she doubts that she's in the right. So she eyeballs him.

Barney grimaces, then turns on his heel and half-storms half-skulks into the kitchen. Later, he hopes that it looked like he couldn't be bothered having such a silly argument with her- but in truth, in the moment, he just needs to get away from her because of panic and powerlessness and the fear that Penny's one hundred per cent right in what she's saying.

They both know that he runs because he doesn't want to hear the truth.