Fic: The Stinson Legacy (3/6)
Author: 1angelette
Fandom: HIMYM
Title: The Stinson Legacy; or, Yeah, That Kid
Rating: PG-13 for some adult themes, a little profanity
Summary: In which Bobby is precocious, Robin is a tad out of the loop, and Barney needs scotch.
Spoilers: Through 4x01,elements of 4x03/04 Officially AU as heck as of 4x05.
Characters/pairings: Barney/Robin, OC (see title), small amounts of ensemble and Ted/Stella + Lily/Marshall
Length: 1000+ words
IX.
“WHAT?” Marshall shouted.
Lily cringed. She had known he wouldn’t take this well. “…Barney and Robin have a son. Named Bobby! That’s so cute… wait, not the time.”
“I can’t believe this!” Marshall cried. “How could she-he’d make such a bad-they-this completely defies the order of the universe.”
“Well,” Lily tried to reason, “it kind of makes sense, in an odd sort of way. I mean, you and me, those two, Ted with another person…. it sorta fits together!”
“Lily, it’s impossible for this to make sense. We are talking about Barney and Robin and a child. Robin and Barney as parents makes no sense! It’s like-”
“Hi, guys,” Ted said, coming into the bar. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing!” Lily immediately lied. “Nothing interesting, anyway…”
“Or crazy,” Marshall added. “Not like Area 52 information, or sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, or Barney and Robin having a love child that he never knew about and she managed to keep a secret for five whole years, or President Palin’s approval ratings going above-”
“Wait, what was the one before that?”
“….Nothing,” the couple immediately responded.
“But I could have sworn you said…” Ted thought for a second, trying to remember. “You’re right, that would definitely be crazier than the Loch Ness Monster.”
“Ha! Told you it was crazy!”
Ted’s eyes went wide. “Wait, what? They can’t actually have a kid! That would be insane. I mean, they did it how many times, once? That would be like something out of Desperate Housewives or Days of Our Lives.”
“Well,” Marshall pointed out, “our lives were pretty soap-opera back around then. I mean, imagine how it’ll sound when you tell it to your kids in twenty years. ‘Previously in the story of how I met your mother, Barney, my bro, had just slept with Robin, my former lover, when her heart was broken again by the former flame to whom she had given her maple leaf. He realized this was a violation of the Bro Code, a sacred document, and I rejected his friendship. Soon afterward, I got hit by a taxi and then your mother dumped me. Meanwhile, Barney got hit by a bus trying to find me again, and as he reposed in a giant cast, he kept looking at Robin while Marshall and Lily talked about the things he loved. His loins burnt as he remembered their passionate tryst several months ag-’”
“Okay, stop, this is really crazy, I need to sit down…”
At this point, Barney entered the bar. “Hey, guys, what’s up?”
“Nothing,” all three of them said at once.
“Absolutely nothing,” Ted affirmed.
“Nothing remotely interesting,” Lily said, shaking her head.
“And definitely nothing to do with you or with Robin or with, er, me or Lily or Ted or his unborn child of currently ambiguous gender or my extremely precious daughter or all those little devils that romp around playgrounds worldwide or-”
Barney’s head was drooping by this point. “I need scotch. Lots and lots of scotch.”
“The poor guy knows,” Ted muttered as his friend sat down at the bar.
“Knows what?” Robin asked brightly as she sat down at the table.
“…Nothing,” Ted said.
Robin shrugged. “Oh. Alright, then. Wendy!”
“Um, she passed on,” Marshall somberly explained. All three present members of the gang looked at the table sadly.
“…She what?”
“Wendy,” Ted clarified sadly, “has moved on to a higher-paying Friday’s gig in New Jersey, and not only that, but a Friday’s far, far away from Stella and I’s place.”
“Ah,” Robin said softly.
The waitress came to their table. “Hi, I’m April! Here’s your drink,” she said, putting it down.
“Hey, I recognize you!”
“Oh?”
“Yes, you were my waitress that one time. Hey…” Robin pointed over to the bar. “Have you met Barney?”
“No,” April said.
“Why don’t you ask him if he wants anything,” Robin said.
April walked over to the bar. “Hi, I’m April. Would you like to buy one of our many fine drinks?”
Barney looked at her, recalled something, and turned to the bartender. “I need another shot of scotch.”
X.
The first of March somehow managed to pass without further incident, so the next day Barney, Robin, and Bobby were seated around a table, having breakfast. Very silent breakfast. Bobby picked fretfully at his waffles, sensing the tension between the two adults with him.
“Robin, I have a question.”
“Yeah?” she said back, sipping her Cogurt (the caffeinated, nutritious, disgusting Drink of the Future).
“Well, actually, two questions. One, when will you be leaving; and two, when do you plan on admitting that Bobby is our son?”
Robin spat out all her Cogurt.
“Wow!” the boy enthused. “You’re my real daddy? AWESOME!”
Barney looked at the happiness with which his child took this and felt extremely sad. “…Okay, never mind, you don’t have to admit it, let’s just forget about the whole thing.”
“No,” Robin said a bit contentiously, “maybe we should talk about this.”
“Wait,” Bobby enthused, “if I’m going to be like you when I grow up, does that mean I get to be an ‘enormous prat with no control over his-’”
“Shush, Bobby, mommy and daddy are talking.” Barney then realized the ironic truth of these words. “…I really can’t talk about this.”
“We have to!” Robin insisted. “I… well… I have to explain to you why I came.”
“I take it you didn’t get fired and your apartment building did not burn down?”
“Actually, I did get sacked. And another flat burnt down, at any rate, in the same building.”
“But mummy,” Bobby said, “you told me that we were going to find my daddy!”
“I was getting to that,” Robin explained patiently. “For the past six months, he had been begging me to, well, ‘find his daddy’.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want-”
Barney’s cell phone rang. “Dang. One sec. Barnacle here. Yeah? Oh. ASAP? OK. Bye.” He put the phone away. “Sorry, I have to go. Sayonara.”
“But-”
He left. Robin was visibly disappointed.
“Mommy, are you going to say that word which starts with D that you said I could not say?”
“Yes.”
XI.
Barney was “at work” later that day and noticed a new message from James in his inbox:
Hey, brother! How have you been? It’s a while since we’ve talked. Jordan tells me to say ‘hi’. Tom caught pneumonia a week ago, but is over it now.
Respond soon,
James
Barney chuckled a bit at his brother’s domestic little life and composed a response.
Dear James,
Nice to hear about your family. Not too much has happened to me lately. I got that magazine deal carved in stone. Also, yesterday the love of my life came back from England with her five-year-old son of whom I am the father, but that’s about it.
Love and awesomeness,
Barney
Wow, I’m almost getting used to this whole thing, Barney thought right before he clicked “Send.”
XII.
Bobby was sitting around in the apartment, and he was bored. By today, the thrill of going across the pond and discovering his real father had worn off, and now he was just longing for kindergarten again.
“I’m bored,” he said to Mr. Obbles. Mr. Obbles was a teddy bear/octopus hybrid that had not sold well and was being liquidation sold back in 2009. Bobby liked to talk to Mr. Obbles.
“Why are you bored?” Mr. Obbles said.
“Well, I’m not at school,” Bobby explained. “So I have nothing to do but talk to you.”
“What about your daddy? He’s right over there.” Bobby picked up one of Mr. Obbles’s tentacles and pointed it at Barney, who was reading a magazine on the couch.
“Do you really think I should talk to him?”
Mr. Obbles nodded. Bobby set him down and got onto the couch next to his father. “Hello, dad.”
Barney was a bit startled. “Uh, hey, kid.”
There was a silence.
“Daddy, why haven’t I met you until now?”
After a longer silence, he said, “You know, I want to ask your mother that same question.”