Number Sixty Six (1/?)
Title: Number Sixty Six (1/?)
Author: Stablergirl
Rating: MA
Pairing: Barney/Robin
Spoilers: Up to and including Benefits? I think.
Author's Notes: In response to prompt number 66 at "darkfic" - abuse - here is my contribution. Originially I thought I might try to wirte a bit on a bunch of the prompts, but it doesn't seem to be heading in that direction...I'm more of a wax poetics in one area kind of gal, so that is what I am doing. This is heavy, and also un-beta'd, so let me know what you think (and if you'd like to beta at all)
PS - when I say heavy, I know it doesn't seem like it in this chapter, but seriously. it's called darkfic for a reason.
Disclaimer: This show, these characters, the rhymes...nothing belongs to me. I'm a big old thief. Sorry, don't sue.
::WARNING:: This story contains violence and abuse. Please use your discretion.
Chapter 1: Coffee and strangers.
Barney Stinson likes his coffee iced in the morning. He likes the way he can drink it fast and the way the caffeine seeps into his bloodstream, the way the coffee is gone and the cup disposed of before he even gets to the door of GNB, the way his entrance into the corporate bee hive is free of baggage or plastic or straws. He likes to ride in the elevator empty handed when everybody else is juggling briefcases and paperwork and too-hot cups of too-hot coffee. He likes to shake his head at them, push his empty hands into his empty pockets, chuckle to himself as he hits the button for his floor with no difficulty whatsoever.
He likes his coffee iced. It’s the best way to start off a dull Monday morning.
He tries not to think about the fact that he’d started wanting the sharpness of iced coffee around the same time he’d started wanting the sharpness of Robin Scherbatsky’s quick wit and deadly stare. He craved iced coffee in the morning instead of burn-your-tongue-off lattes or hand-scalding mochas, and he craved Robin's cool intelligence in the evening instead of the lukewarm cluelessness of green horn farmer’s daughters or L.A. Barbie-wanna-be’s.
He tries not to think about the similarities and implications in his changes of habit. Instead he thinks about other things.
He’s waiting in line at Starbucks, checking his email on his I-phone and ignoring the rush hour hustle and bustle going on around him until he’s only two people away from the register, at which point he starts to consider what he wants. He’s eyeing the advertisement for free flavor shots when the guy in line ahead of him gets restless, crossing his arms, huffing, glaring at the woman who’s ordering twelve lattes with varying sorts of milk and sugar and shots of espresso. In his all-encompassing irritation the man in front of Barney unthinkingly shifts on his feet, stepping backwards so the heel of his foot lands solidly on Barney’s toes.
“Excuse me,” the man says over his shoulder, shaking his head, too annoyed to apologize properly.
Barney grins.
“Don’t worry about it. Got somewhere to be?” he wonders casually.
The guy huffs and glances at Barney, “Anywhere but here, at the moment,” he answers, sounding refined despite his obvious irritation.
Barney hums in response. He feels his thoughts starting to drift and he’s thinking (again) of the ways Robin is like a delicious mixture of ice, caffeine, and a light breeze of flavor (hazelnut or almond, not at all French vanilla) and so he sternly shakes himself and tips his head, instead considering the impatient man’s suit and salt and pepper hair.
“You work upstairs?” he asks to distract himself. The guy furrows his brow, reacting as if that was an inappropriate question, which Barney figures is probably true, but he doesn’t exactly care.
“No,” the stranger answers simply.
There’s a pause as Barney waits for him to expand on that and the man, instead, turns away and taps his foot as he waits for the woman in line ahead of him to finish her order and pay.
Barney refuses to allow his thoughts to wander (he always thinks of her too often in the morning, it’s pathetic) and so he sticks his hand out at the stranger in front of him for a hand shake, grinning, blatantly ignoring the body language which is an obvious if silent request that the man be left alone, “Barney Stinson. I work for GNB.”
The man pauses, considering him, deciding whether he should shake a stranger’s hand on a Monday morning in mid-town Manhattan, but eventually - begrudgingly - he gives in.
“Nice to meet you, Stinson,” the man responds, “That’s a very smart suit you have on.”
Yes, then it's official.
Barney is a fan of this mysterious no-nonsense coffee-drinker - if only for the sake of his suit’s ego and his mind’s need to focus outside of itself.
“Thank you very much,” he answers, charmed, tugging at his cuff in a flattered kind of way. “That's a fine piece of craftsmanship you're wearing there, as well,” he responds kindly, gesturing toward the double breasted pin striped number this man has donned, raising his eyebrows in impressed admiration. “Italian?” he wonders.
“Hungarian, in fact,” the man corrects and Barney’s eyebrows hike even further toward his hair line.
“Really?”
At that moment the woman in front of them has finished her order and offered up a company credit card which is miraculously approved for the charges, despite the ridiculous cost of the beverages, and the pin-stripe-suit-clad stranger steps forward. He clears his throat before ordering a hot coffee - light and sweet. Barney frowns.
“You should drink it iced,” he suggests, unable to help himself. He thinks of Robin. He can't help that either.
The man glances at him and squints, “Iced?”
“You drink it faster,” Barney explains.
The man tilts his head and seems to consider it, the shine of his shoes catching Barney’s eye and making him nod in approval because it’s clear they’ve been carefully selected and recently shined.
“Ok, Stinson. Iced it is.” Correcting his order the man slips a twenty across the counter and holds a hand out for the change, shooting Barney a hard-to-read expression as he does so. “I’m Jack,” he says belatedly and Barney nods, feeling kind of awkward and somewhat self conscious. “It’s good to meet you.”
**
Jack, be nimble. Jack, be quick. Jack, jump over the candlestick. Jack, be nimble.
Jack, be slick.
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
**
They bump into each other again the next day, and Jack again orders an iced coffee, lifting it toward Barney with a grin.
He nods and says “Stinson.”
Barney nods and says “Jack.”
And he’s pleased to have converted someone to his iced coffee way of doing things.
They chat about nothing, then, and Jack says he’s been looking for a certain bar on the Upper West Side. Barney, only half listening, mentions something about MacLaren’s, but then his order is up and they part ways, waving casually.
Barney squints as he steps out into the morning sun, shaking his head. Heat wave in March, he grumbles. Totally bizarre.
***
It’s raining, it’s pouring.
The old man is snoring.
He went to bed with a bump on his head and he didn’t wake up ‘til morning…
***
“So he told me not to worry, that if I paid this time he would get it next time. But then, get this, he tells me to make sure I tip the waitress at least twenty percent because otherwise he’d be embarrassed,” Robin’s facial expression quirks into one of exaggerated disgust and exasperation as she finishes, and Lily sighs.
“Robin, I don’t get it,” Lily says, sounding tired, and Barney has to admit he agrees. He doesn’t get it either. Honestly, he pretty much never gets Robin’s taste in men, but he keeps that thought forever to himself - choosing always to be silent on this particular matter.
“What?” Robin wonders. She is clueless, he thinks fondly.
She is clueless and radiant and stunning - dressed to kill in a fire engine red tank top and perfectly fitting jeans. Barney tries to avoid licking his lips as he pretends to watch television, as he pretends to pay her no mind, as he pretends he is not constantly worshipping at the Church of Robin.
“What is the deal with the long string of jerks you’re gallivanting around with lately?” Lily asks, propping her feet up on Ted’s coffee table and resting her head back against the sofa, exhausted by the thought of it.
Robin scoffs, “I…what do you…” she shrugs, “Whatever, I do not gallivant.”
“You totally gallivant,” Marshall insists, looking up from the copy of Save the Planet Magazine he’s been skimming.
Barney nods. “There’s a lengthy history of gallivanting,” he comments flatly.
Robin glares at him, sharp like iced coffee, and something slips down his spine -something excitement or amusement or caffeinated white hot and branded ROBIN, marking his bones with the feel of her.
“Shut up,” she murmurs.
He laughs.
Lily continues her argument, she cites specific occasions and names as if she’s writing a thesis aloud, but Barney isn’t listening. He doesn’t need to listen, he knows what Lily’s saying is true. He’s noticed the way Robin has gotten careless, giving her phone number out when she would normally give out snark, flirting when she would normally rebuff, accepting advances that, a month ago, would have made her roll her eyes in boredom and yawn into the palm of her hand. Lily’s right, Robin’s gallivanting, and part of him - the narcissistic self-involved part - likes to think this bad behavior of hers all has something to do with the amount of attention he’s been ‘accidentally’ tossing her way.
After all, it would take a moron not to notice he’s smitten.
It would take an absolute blind man to miss the drool that forms at the side of his mouth whenever she’s within twenty feet.
Barney likes to think she’s afraid of it.
Afraid of whatever imaginary thing there is possibly brewing between them. Afraid of the way she suspects he feels about her and the way she maybe feels about him. Afraid of his burning eyes. Afraid of his charming smile. Afraid of his disarming good looks. Basically afraid of Barney Stinson in all his wonder.
He likes to think this parade of idiots she’s been tugging around by a leash just to prove she can is simply a reaction to that fear.
The self-absorbed part of his brain takes credit for the strange habits Robin is forming.
The other part of his brain, though, the less neurotic and more observant part, watches her - interested, fascinated, cataloguing this behavior for future reference. The more in tune part of his brain sees some other motivation there. Some deep seeded motivation that would take weeks to figure out. And weeks, he’s got. So he watches her, thinking, studying every move.
Barney is not listening to Lily’s running monologue.
Instead he’s watching Robin Scherbatsky.
He’s constantly watching Robin Scherbatsky.
He studies her. He does it more and more often the more she turns him on - which is more and more often - and right now her cheeks are getting pink as he sits there staring, a reaction, most likely, to Lily’s dramatic reinterpretation of Robin’s dating activity, possibly also a reaction to the press of Barney’s gaze against her skin. He wonders if she can feel it. Her cheeks get pink as he watches, and her smile flattens out to a thin, forced line…
Robin Scherbatsky does not seem amused.
And there’s something strange, he thinks, sometimes in the way she reacts to things.
She shrugs and pushes out a chuckle, laughing a self-deprecating laugh that coaxes the room into laughing along with her.
But Barney doesn’t laugh.
“I don’t know. They haven’t been that bad, have they? There are worse, right?” Robin wonders and everybody else huffs and scoffs and assures her they are definitely that bad and she should be ashamed of herself.
But Barney doesn’t speak.
He studies her.
Intently.
Taking in every tick, every shift, every flinch of her eyebrow and purse of her lips.
She glances over at him and catches his stare and he thinks sometimes, just sometimes…there’s something strange.
Then Robin grins and it’s gone.
**
Little Jack Horner sat in a corner eating his Christmas pie.
He stuck in his thumb -and pulled out a plumb…
**
On Wednesday Barney’s standing in line at Starbucks and thinking about Robin’s iced coffee stare when something jerks him from his thoughts. He recognizes the voice before the suit, and the suit before the face, and he grins as the barista calls out the order for an iced venti coffee, light and sweet.
It’s up fast, because that’s the way iced coffee works, and the straw balanced on the lid slips and falls to the floor. Jack does not bend down to retrieve it, choosing instead to ask for a new one. When he eventually turns his eyes land automatically on Barney and Jack lifts his cup in a greeting.
He nods and says “Stinson.”
Barney nods and says “Jack.”
***
It’s raining, it’s pouring…
Jack, be nimble.
Jack, be slick.
Jack, jump over the candlestick.
***
Barney has a certain bank account set aside for supporting the arts. And by a bank account for supporting the arts he means a bank account full of strip club money.
Also money spent on gym memberships.
As well as money spent on foxy boxing.
And, recently, money spent at gyms supporting foxy boxing boxers.
He likes to encourage wellness and self-defense and a well-toned physique, so every once in a while he sponsors a promising young female in the art of hand to hand combat. There’s a gym on Eighth Avenue with excellent trainers and a boxing ring upstairs. A few months back he put some money down and gave a large, burly, ex-heavyweight trainer strict instructions to give a young lady named Christine Truman anything her heart desired - special platinum Am-Ex coated treatment - as long as it eventually led to a heart-breakingly delicious body and endless indebtedness to one Barney Stinson.
From what he can tell Christine is doing very well, and every once in a while he spends his lunch break observing just how well it is that she’s doing. He doesn’t mention this to Ted or Marshall because Barney knows they would scoff, he knows they would judge him. He knows they would not approve, but he honestly could not care less.
Christine is vivacious and buxom and constantly wrapped in spandex and Barney thoroughly enjoys her grateful glances and flirtatious smiles. He thoroughly enjoys the way her bouncing…ponytail…can momentarily distract him from all the almond-flavored thoughts he keeps having about Robin Scherbatsky. He thoroughly enjoys that every once in a while his late night fantasies star a sinewy blonde in a boxing ring instead of a slinky brunette in a booth at MacLaren’s.
He also thoroughly enjoys Christine’s tightly toned back side and her not-overly-muscular-but-cellulite-free thighs.
He likes all these things about Christine, so on Wednesday he decides he’s had enough of his Robin-centric thoughts. He’s had enough of watching her, enough of studying her, enough of thinking about what exactly makes her tick, and on a whim he cancels an afternoon meeting to check in on Christine around 2:30. It’s later than usual, but there’s still about a fifty percent shot she’ll be in the ring. If she’s not, he reasons as his cab pulls up to the building, there’s a good chance some other boxing beauty will be there in her place. He’ll take his chances.
Nodding at the receptionist in the lobby, Barney heads upstairs. He travels the halls and passes the bouncing step classes and bass-heavy hip hop classes and pushes through a door into the back room.
He doesn’t find Christine.
But he circles the room anyway, searching for any kind of late-lunchtime inspiration, taking in the well-defined abs and the fierce-looking facial expressions of the people working out until he hits one, surprisingly, that he recognizes.
And he stops dead in his tracks.
He stops dead and he thinks the world is laughing in his face. Fate is standing over him and grinning devilishly at the painful irony of it all. Barney swallows and blinks to be sure he’s not imagining things.
Robin Scherbatsky is throwing upper cuts at a punching bag, and he thinks he must be imagining things.
Wet dream, party of one? Your table is now ready.
“Robin?” he forces out, and she freezes, her hands dropping to her sides, strangely calm and unaffected, iced-coffee cold.
She wipes at the sweat on her brow and she gives him one of those looks. One of those strange looks he keeps noticing where her gaze is dark and stormy and he gets the feeling she’s even more mysterious than she seems, even more full of puzzles, even more tempting and teasing and tantalizing than he ever thought before.
“Hey,” she says, and he squints and tilts his head at her.
“What are you doing here? You box?” he asks, unsure how exactly to proceed, feeling awkward for some unfounded reason - most likely the fact that his pulse has doubled and all his blood has chosen to relocate at the thought of her in the ring.
“Sometimes,” she answers cryptically.
He eyes her skin-tight shorts and tape-covered knuckles and the way her ass is so tight he could bounce a quarter off of it and he raises his eyebrows. He resists reaching out and grabbing her by reaching up and grabbing at his tie instead. He clears his throat.
“Hot” is the only word he can spit out without saying way too much.
Part 2
Author: Stablergirl
Rating: MA
Pairing: Barney/Robin
Spoilers: Up to and including Benefits? I think.
Author's Notes: In response to prompt number 66 at "darkfic" - abuse - here is my contribution. Originially I thought I might try to wirte a bit on a bunch of the prompts, but it doesn't seem to be heading in that direction...I'm more of a wax poetics in one area kind of gal, so that is what I am doing. This is heavy, and also un-beta'd, so let me know what you think (and if you'd like to beta at all)
PS - when I say heavy, I know it doesn't seem like it in this chapter, but seriously. it's called darkfic for a reason.
Disclaimer: This show, these characters, the rhymes...nothing belongs to me. I'm a big old thief. Sorry, don't sue.
::WARNING:: This story contains violence and abuse. Please use your discretion.
Chapter 1: Coffee and strangers.
Barney Stinson likes his coffee iced in the morning. He likes the way he can drink it fast and the way the caffeine seeps into his bloodstream, the way the coffee is gone and the cup disposed of before he even gets to the door of GNB, the way his entrance into the corporate bee hive is free of baggage or plastic or straws. He likes to ride in the elevator empty handed when everybody else is juggling briefcases and paperwork and too-hot cups of too-hot coffee. He likes to shake his head at them, push his empty hands into his empty pockets, chuckle to himself as he hits the button for his floor with no difficulty whatsoever.
He likes his coffee iced. It’s the best way to start off a dull Monday morning.
He tries not to think about the fact that he’d started wanting the sharpness of iced coffee around the same time he’d started wanting the sharpness of Robin Scherbatsky’s quick wit and deadly stare. He craved iced coffee in the morning instead of burn-your-tongue-off lattes or hand-scalding mochas, and he craved Robin's cool intelligence in the evening instead of the lukewarm cluelessness of green horn farmer’s daughters or L.A. Barbie-wanna-be’s.
He tries not to think about the similarities and implications in his changes of habit. Instead he thinks about other things.
He’s waiting in line at Starbucks, checking his email on his I-phone and ignoring the rush hour hustle and bustle going on around him until he’s only two people away from the register, at which point he starts to consider what he wants. He’s eyeing the advertisement for free flavor shots when the guy in line ahead of him gets restless, crossing his arms, huffing, glaring at the woman who’s ordering twelve lattes with varying sorts of milk and sugar and shots of espresso. In his all-encompassing irritation the man in front of Barney unthinkingly shifts on his feet, stepping backwards so the heel of his foot lands solidly on Barney’s toes.
“Excuse me,” the man says over his shoulder, shaking his head, too annoyed to apologize properly.
Barney grins.
“Don’t worry about it. Got somewhere to be?” he wonders casually.
The guy huffs and glances at Barney, “Anywhere but here, at the moment,” he answers, sounding refined despite his obvious irritation.
Barney hums in response. He feels his thoughts starting to drift and he’s thinking (again) of the ways Robin is like a delicious mixture of ice, caffeine, and a light breeze of flavor (hazelnut or almond, not at all French vanilla) and so he sternly shakes himself and tips his head, instead considering the impatient man’s suit and salt and pepper hair.
“You work upstairs?” he asks to distract himself. The guy furrows his brow, reacting as if that was an inappropriate question, which Barney figures is probably true, but he doesn’t exactly care.
“No,” the stranger answers simply.
There’s a pause as Barney waits for him to expand on that and the man, instead, turns away and taps his foot as he waits for the woman in line ahead of him to finish her order and pay.
Barney refuses to allow his thoughts to wander (he always thinks of her too often in the morning, it’s pathetic) and so he sticks his hand out at the stranger in front of him for a hand shake, grinning, blatantly ignoring the body language which is an obvious if silent request that the man be left alone, “Barney Stinson. I work for GNB.”
The man pauses, considering him, deciding whether he should shake a stranger’s hand on a Monday morning in mid-town Manhattan, but eventually - begrudgingly - he gives in.
“Nice to meet you, Stinson,” the man responds, “That’s a very smart suit you have on.”
Yes, then it's official.
Barney is a fan of this mysterious no-nonsense coffee-drinker - if only for the sake of his suit’s ego and his mind’s need to focus outside of itself.
“Thank you very much,” he answers, charmed, tugging at his cuff in a flattered kind of way. “That's a fine piece of craftsmanship you're wearing there, as well,” he responds kindly, gesturing toward the double breasted pin striped number this man has donned, raising his eyebrows in impressed admiration. “Italian?” he wonders.
“Hungarian, in fact,” the man corrects and Barney’s eyebrows hike even further toward his hair line.
“Really?”
At that moment the woman in front of them has finished her order and offered up a company credit card which is miraculously approved for the charges, despite the ridiculous cost of the beverages, and the pin-stripe-suit-clad stranger steps forward. He clears his throat before ordering a hot coffee - light and sweet. Barney frowns.
“You should drink it iced,” he suggests, unable to help himself. He thinks of Robin. He can't help that either.
The man glances at him and squints, “Iced?”
“You drink it faster,” Barney explains.
The man tilts his head and seems to consider it, the shine of his shoes catching Barney’s eye and making him nod in approval because it’s clear they’ve been carefully selected and recently shined.
“Ok, Stinson. Iced it is.” Correcting his order the man slips a twenty across the counter and holds a hand out for the change, shooting Barney a hard-to-read expression as he does so. “I’m Jack,” he says belatedly and Barney nods, feeling kind of awkward and somewhat self conscious. “It’s good to meet you.”
**
Jack, be nimble. Jack, be quick. Jack, jump over the candlestick. Jack, be nimble.
Jack, be slick.
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
**
They bump into each other again the next day, and Jack again orders an iced coffee, lifting it toward Barney with a grin.
He nods and says “Stinson.”
Barney nods and says “Jack.”
And he’s pleased to have converted someone to his iced coffee way of doing things.
They chat about nothing, then, and Jack says he’s been looking for a certain bar on the Upper West Side. Barney, only half listening, mentions something about MacLaren’s, but then his order is up and they part ways, waving casually.
Barney squints as he steps out into the morning sun, shaking his head. Heat wave in March, he grumbles. Totally bizarre.
***
It’s raining, it’s pouring.
The old man is snoring.
He went to bed with a bump on his head and he didn’t wake up ‘til morning…
***
“So he told me not to worry, that if I paid this time he would get it next time. But then, get this, he tells me to make sure I tip the waitress at least twenty percent because otherwise he’d be embarrassed,” Robin’s facial expression quirks into one of exaggerated disgust and exasperation as she finishes, and Lily sighs.
“Robin, I don’t get it,” Lily says, sounding tired, and Barney has to admit he agrees. He doesn’t get it either. Honestly, he pretty much never gets Robin’s taste in men, but he keeps that thought forever to himself - choosing always to be silent on this particular matter.
“What?” Robin wonders. She is clueless, he thinks fondly.
She is clueless and radiant and stunning - dressed to kill in a fire engine red tank top and perfectly fitting jeans. Barney tries to avoid licking his lips as he pretends to watch television, as he pretends to pay her no mind, as he pretends he is not constantly worshipping at the Church of Robin.
“What is the deal with the long string of jerks you’re gallivanting around with lately?” Lily asks, propping her feet up on Ted’s coffee table and resting her head back against the sofa, exhausted by the thought of it.
Robin scoffs, “I…what do you…” she shrugs, “Whatever, I do not gallivant.”
“You totally gallivant,” Marshall insists, looking up from the copy of Save the Planet Magazine he’s been skimming.
Barney nods. “There’s a lengthy history of gallivanting,” he comments flatly.
Robin glares at him, sharp like iced coffee, and something slips down his spine -something excitement or amusement or caffeinated white hot and branded ROBIN, marking his bones with the feel of her.
“Shut up,” she murmurs.
He laughs.
Lily continues her argument, she cites specific occasions and names as if she’s writing a thesis aloud, but Barney isn’t listening. He doesn’t need to listen, he knows what Lily’s saying is true. He’s noticed the way Robin has gotten careless, giving her phone number out when she would normally give out snark, flirting when she would normally rebuff, accepting advances that, a month ago, would have made her roll her eyes in boredom and yawn into the palm of her hand. Lily’s right, Robin’s gallivanting, and part of him - the narcissistic self-involved part - likes to think this bad behavior of hers all has something to do with the amount of attention he’s been ‘accidentally’ tossing her way.
After all, it would take a moron not to notice he’s smitten.
It would take an absolute blind man to miss the drool that forms at the side of his mouth whenever she’s within twenty feet.
Barney likes to think she’s afraid of it.
Afraid of whatever imaginary thing there is possibly brewing between them. Afraid of the way she suspects he feels about her and the way she maybe feels about him. Afraid of his burning eyes. Afraid of his charming smile. Afraid of his disarming good looks. Basically afraid of Barney Stinson in all his wonder.
He likes to think this parade of idiots she’s been tugging around by a leash just to prove she can is simply a reaction to that fear.
The self-absorbed part of his brain takes credit for the strange habits Robin is forming.
The other part of his brain, though, the less neurotic and more observant part, watches her - interested, fascinated, cataloguing this behavior for future reference. The more in tune part of his brain sees some other motivation there. Some deep seeded motivation that would take weeks to figure out. And weeks, he’s got. So he watches her, thinking, studying every move.
Barney is not listening to Lily’s running monologue.
Instead he’s watching Robin Scherbatsky.
He’s constantly watching Robin Scherbatsky.
He studies her. He does it more and more often the more she turns him on - which is more and more often - and right now her cheeks are getting pink as he sits there staring, a reaction, most likely, to Lily’s dramatic reinterpretation of Robin’s dating activity, possibly also a reaction to the press of Barney’s gaze against her skin. He wonders if she can feel it. Her cheeks get pink as he watches, and her smile flattens out to a thin, forced line…
Robin Scherbatsky does not seem amused.
And there’s something strange, he thinks, sometimes in the way she reacts to things.
She shrugs and pushes out a chuckle, laughing a self-deprecating laugh that coaxes the room into laughing along with her.
But Barney doesn’t laugh.
“I don’t know. They haven’t been that bad, have they? There are worse, right?” Robin wonders and everybody else huffs and scoffs and assures her they are definitely that bad and she should be ashamed of herself.
But Barney doesn’t speak.
He studies her.
Intently.
Taking in every tick, every shift, every flinch of her eyebrow and purse of her lips.
She glances over at him and catches his stare and he thinks sometimes, just sometimes…there’s something strange.
Then Robin grins and it’s gone.
**
Little Jack Horner sat in a corner eating his Christmas pie.
He stuck in his thumb -and pulled out a plumb…
**
On Wednesday Barney’s standing in line at Starbucks and thinking about Robin’s iced coffee stare when something jerks him from his thoughts. He recognizes the voice before the suit, and the suit before the face, and he grins as the barista calls out the order for an iced venti coffee, light and sweet.
It’s up fast, because that’s the way iced coffee works, and the straw balanced on the lid slips and falls to the floor. Jack does not bend down to retrieve it, choosing instead to ask for a new one. When he eventually turns his eyes land automatically on Barney and Jack lifts his cup in a greeting.
He nods and says “Stinson.”
Barney nods and says “Jack.”
***
It’s raining, it’s pouring…
Jack, be nimble.
Jack, be slick.
Jack, jump over the candlestick.
***
Barney has a certain bank account set aside for supporting the arts. And by a bank account for supporting the arts he means a bank account full of strip club money.
Also money spent on gym memberships.
As well as money spent on foxy boxing.
And, recently, money spent at gyms supporting foxy boxing boxers.
He likes to encourage wellness and self-defense and a well-toned physique, so every once in a while he sponsors a promising young female in the art of hand to hand combat. There’s a gym on Eighth Avenue with excellent trainers and a boxing ring upstairs. A few months back he put some money down and gave a large, burly, ex-heavyweight trainer strict instructions to give a young lady named Christine Truman anything her heart desired - special platinum Am-Ex coated treatment - as long as it eventually led to a heart-breakingly delicious body and endless indebtedness to one Barney Stinson.
From what he can tell Christine is doing very well, and every once in a while he spends his lunch break observing just how well it is that she’s doing. He doesn’t mention this to Ted or Marshall because Barney knows they would scoff, he knows they would judge him. He knows they would not approve, but he honestly could not care less.
Christine is vivacious and buxom and constantly wrapped in spandex and Barney thoroughly enjoys her grateful glances and flirtatious smiles. He thoroughly enjoys the way her bouncing…ponytail…can momentarily distract him from all the almond-flavored thoughts he keeps having about Robin Scherbatsky. He thoroughly enjoys that every once in a while his late night fantasies star a sinewy blonde in a boxing ring instead of a slinky brunette in a booth at MacLaren’s.
He also thoroughly enjoys Christine’s tightly toned back side and her not-overly-muscular-but-cellulite-free thighs.
He likes all these things about Christine, so on Wednesday he decides he’s had enough of his Robin-centric thoughts. He’s had enough of watching her, enough of studying her, enough of thinking about what exactly makes her tick, and on a whim he cancels an afternoon meeting to check in on Christine around 2:30. It’s later than usual, but there’s still about a fifty percent shot she’ll be in the ring. If she’s not, he reasons as his cab pulls up to the building, there’s a good chance some other boxing beauty will be there in her place. He’ll take his chances.
Nodding at the receptionist in the lobby, Barney heads upstairs. He travels the halls and passes the bouncing step classes and bass-heavy hip hop classes and pushes through a door into the back room.
He doesn’t find Christine.
But he circles the room anyway, searching for any kind of late-lunchtime inspiration, taking in the well-defined abs and the fierce-looking facial expressions of the people working out until he hits one, surprisingly, that he recognizes.
And he stops dead in his tracks.
He stops dead and he thinks the world is laughing in his face. Fate is standing over him and grinning devilishly at the painful irony of it all. Barney swallows and blinks to be sure he’s not imagining things.
Robin Scherbatsky is throwing upper cuts at a punching bag, and he thinks he must be imagining things.
Wet dream, party of one? Your table is now ready.
“Robin?” he forces out, and she freezes, her hands dropping to her sides, strangely calm and unaffected, iced-coffee cold.
She wipes at the sweat on her brow and she gives him one of those looks. One of those strange looks he keeps noticing where her gaze is dark and stormy and he gets the feeling she’s even more mysterious than she seems, even more full of puzzles, even more tempting and teasing and tantalizing than he ever thought before.
“Hey,” she says, and he squints and tilts his head at her.
“What are you doing here? You box?” he asks, unsure how exactly to proceed, feeling awkward for some unfounded reason - most likely the fact that his pulse has doubled and all his blood has chosen to relocate at the thought of her in the ring.
“Sometimes,” she answers cryptically.
He eyes her skin-tight shorts and tape-covered knuckles and the way her ass is so tight he could bounce a quarter off of it and he raises his eyebrows. He resists reaching out and grabbing her by reaching up and grabbing at his tie instead. He clears his throat.
“Hot” is the only word he can spit out without saying way too much.
Part 2