FIC: Fired (4/4) HIMYM
Part 4
"You idiot!"
Lily thwacks Barney across the back of the head with a rolled-up MacLaren's menu before sliding into the booth beside Marshall. "What in the hell, Barney?" She rounds on him, mascara smeared across her cheeks. Marshall drapes his arm around her but she shrugs it off as she realizes the mess Barney's in, seeing his shoulder, the bandages. She blanches, covering her mouth with one trembling hand. "Oh my god, how can you be laughing?"
Marshall takes her other hand and squeezes it, while across the table Barney shrugs and sips his drink. It's a diet coke. Neither Ted nor Marshall will let him near any alcohol in his condition.
Barney grins in a kind of distracted, dazed manner and says "I'm totally awesome, Lil. Bullets bounce right off me."
"Right through you!" Ted corrects him, scowling.
But Marshall notices the details. Like how it's not just the medication or the shock or whatever. No, there's something more about Barney, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Whatever tension's been keeping him up all night recently seems to have been leeched out of him. Or shot out of him.
Barney's been walking around like the worst thing in the world has been about to happen. It occurs to Marshall that perhaps now it already has, and so he thinks he can relax. It amazes him that Ted and Lily don't call Barney out about this. The whole thing stinks. Barney even confirms Marshall's suspicion when he says "Sure, I'll be invalided out. A few weeks in bed, and I'm not saying by myself, if you know what I mean, Marshall?"
Marshall returns his fist-bump good naturedly, but he can't help thinking that Barney had just got away with murder. Or away from his own murder.
When Robin arrives, she pulls Ted out of the booth and sinks down next to Barney, prodding and poking at him, as if she's still not sure that he's actually alive. "It's true then?" She says. "Does it hurt?" Her hands linger on the space between the bandage and the sling, on his bare arm.
Barney lowers his voice and murmurs. "You know it, babe."
Robin thumps him in the chest.
Rubbing it, Barney grumbles that he's got a mind to fly to Rio and live on Pina Coladas for a few weeks, if it gets him away from violent Canadians.
Lily just smiles and asks Robin if she's "inappropriately turned on right now."
Horrified, Robin sits back in the booth. "Lily, he was shot!" But she spoils it all with a giggle.
"I'm gonna drink rum from the navels of nubile chicks!" Barney continues, oblivious.
But there are details, oh so many details, that bother Marshall. Like why the hospital didn't call Barney's emergency contact when he was brought in, and why was Barney even allowed home. There was so much wrong with this picture.
"Dude, do you wanna stay with us tonight?" Ted asks Barney, gesturing upwards. It pulls Marshall out of his reverie. There's something lingering; that same instinct that he felt in the back of the cab. Like just being near Barney is putting them all in danger right now.
It isn't right. It isn't right at all.
Then Barney gets a call on his cell phone.
He takes it, snapping "Stinson" down the line and waiting while, presumably, someone on the other end of the line said their piece.
There's a gap, a moment, maybe even a millisecond when Barney's fingers go slack and he almost drops the phone. Everyone else is talking and Marshall's pretty sure he's the only one who sees it.
Nobody else notices the sheer terror that claims his friend in that moment, before he tries to crawl back behind his mask. Trouble is, Barney's mask is wearing thin.
Suddenly, Marshall really doesn't want Barney staying with Robin and Ted. He doesn't want the guy anywhere near any of them.
It's like someone's painted a target on his friend's forehead in thick black marker. It's like it's open season. And Marshall knows that it's now way past time for him to act.
*--*--*
Marshall almost confesses everything to Lily that night, while he's struggling to formulate a plan to help Barney. Then Lily's leg curls around his and she pulls herself on top of him, slow and lithe.
As Lily's sweet lips descend on his, all he wants to do is confide in another soul. It's killing him to keep this all in.
But it might kill just her to let it all out.
*--*--*
Two weeks later
Things deteriorate badly. Even at Marshall's level, it's possible to pick up office gossip if you keep your ear to the ground, and there's no doubt that the hot topic, the thing the higher-ups really want to be kept quiet, is the decline of Barney Stinson.
There's talk of meetings missed and mistakes made. There are complaints from his PA about paperwork going astray and angry midnight telephone calls.
And then, on Friday, the inevitable happens.
Marshall hears it all second-hand from Ted, how Barney's lost his job. The way Barney told Ted, the altercation in the ETA went beyond legendary, past epic, and through to utterly fucked-up. It basically consisted of Barney sucker punching Billson and threatening to gut his family and hang them out to dry on the Queensboro' Bridge.
Apparently the whole thing's been caught on videotape and Marshall wonders vaguely if the company will even consider prosecuting Barney.
He very much hopes that they don't think his friend is worthy of expending any more energy on. Deep down Marshall hides the swell of triumph he feels.
No one suspects a thing. Least of all, Barney.
*--*--*
And still, Marshall never says a word to Lily. Never tells her about how he's kept Barney doped to the eyeballs these last couple of weeks, by slipping his hospital meds into his Red Bull.
How he's tampered with Barney's email, contacts and calendar so it looks as though Barney has become an itinerant screw up.
How he's falsified documentation, switched papers.
How he's systematically sabotaged and destroyed his friend's career in order to save his life.
Nope, Marshall never says a word. He smiles, he makes small talk. But somehow it still eats him up inside.
*--*--*
Barney and Robin get back together.
It happens in a weird, roundabout way that none of them really understand, least of all Robin and Barney themselves.
It happens because, for the first time in many years, Barney actually needs someone. And for the first time in an equally high number of years, Robin feels needed. Barney needs Robin to help him rebuild, because she's so uncompromising. Robin uses the brute force approach in order to take control, and for the first time since they've know Barney, he lets someone else lead him.
There are no rings, or wedding bells, or blue orchestras. There are no flowers or chocolates. But Barney's arm is always draped across Robin's shoulders, and Robin's smile is soft and warm. They all know what's going on.
It's never said out loud, but they all know.
*--*--*
Evening
Marshall sits and stares at Mr Inch, Director of Special Projects. He sits and stares and ignores the ache in his head, in his heart, because he has to think.
"I'd like to offer you a job," Inch had said.
"But I've got a job," was Marshall's first thought, but then he realized what Inch meant. He was being offered Barney's job.
"This isn't the kind of job you apply for," Inch tells him. It's the kind of job you win. Dead men's shoes.
The ETA is brightly lit, there are no windows. It's disorienting and bleak, containing only one table and two chairs. Marshall honestly had no idea that the room was used to transition employees up the hierarchy of the organisation as well as out of it.
His heart beats harder, thump-thumping, as he considers how to phrase his rejection of this offer. It speeds up even more as he realizes that it's not the kind of job you can reject.
Inch slides a folder across the table towards Marshall, and he expects it to contain and offer, a contract, the details of the payoff he'll be getting in order to sell his soul. In a way, it does.
There are medical records inside, tests. His wife's name is on the docket, and although there's plenty of jargon, there are many words he understands.
Barren.
Unable to bear children.
Unable to carry a baby to term.
Unable to ever have the family they both wanted.
Marshall's mouth goes dry when he realizes what this means.
"We can help you," Mr Inch says, showing his teeth. He looks more shark than human being. "We have the finest doctors. Marshall," the man says smoothly. "We've watched your career with interest. You're smart, you're ruthless and you're incredibly discrete. We can use you and you sure can use us."
Marshall slowly closes the folder and a thought occurs to him.
The devil is in the detail.
Marshall remembers a certain videotape, a certain young, optimistic young guy with a fringe of long blonde hair and penchant for sad ballads played on an electric keyboard.
"What did you offer Barney?" Marshall asks. "All those years ago? When Barney joined Special Projects, how did you offer to help him?"
Inch looks weirdly pleased by the question, while Marshall just remembers the fear in Barney's eyes when he got that call at the bar, just after he was shot. He also remembers the bruises around Barney's throat.
Inch nods his head and taps his fingers on the folder, as though waiting patiently for Marshall to figure it all out for himself.
Marshall remembers that Barney's Mom had cancer once. Barney was so sure she was going to die that he hired an actress to fool her into thinking he had a girlfriend.
The words get stuck in Marshall's throat, even as he utters them, daring Inch to deny his suspicions. "Barney's Mom. You cured her?"
The clock on the wall ticks in the silence.
"We have the finest doctors."
Inch holds Marshall's gaze, then reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out a folded sheet of paper, handing it to Marshall, followed by a pen.
"Sign here," Inch says. Two words, like gunfire.
Marshall squeezes his eyes shut, steels himself, and signs. What choice does he have?
"You idiot!"
Lily thwacks Barney across the back of the head with a rolled-up MacLaren's menu before sliding into the booth beside Marshall. "What in the hell, Barney?" She rounds on him, mascara smeared across her cheeks. Marshall drapes his arm around her but she shrugs it off as she realizes the mess Barney's in, seeing his shoulder, the bandages. She blanches, covering her mouth with one trembling hand. "Oh my god, how can you be laughing?"
Marshall takes her other hand and squeezes it, while across the table Barney shrugs and sips his drink. It's a diet coke. Neither Ted nor Marshall will let him near any alcohol in his condition.
Barney grins in a kind of distracted, dazed manner and says "I'm totally awesome, Lil. Bullets bounce right off me."
"Right through you!" Ted corrects him, scowling.
But Marshall notices the details. Like how it's not just the medication or the shock or whatever. No, there's something more about Barney, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Whatever tension's been keeping him up all night recently seems to have been leeched out of him. Or shot out of him.
Barney's been walking around like the worst thing in the world has been about to happen. It occurs to Marshall that perhaps now it already has, and so he thinks he can relax. It amazes him that Ted and Lily don't call Barney out about this. The whole thing stinks. Barney even confirms Marshall's suspicion when he says "Sure, I'll be invalided out. A few weeks in bed, and I'm not saying by myself, if you know what I mean, Marshall?"
Marshall returns his fist-bump good naturedly, but he can't help thinking that Barney had just got away with murder. Or away from his own murder.
When Robin arrives, she pulls Ted out of the booth and sinks down next to Barney, prodding and poking at him, as if she's still not sure that he's actually alive. "It's true then?" She says. "Does it hurt?" Her hands linger on the space between the bandage and the sling, on his bare arm.
Barney lowers his voice and murmurs. "You know it, babe."
Robin thumps him in the chest.
Rubbing it, Barney grumbles that he's got a mind to fly to Rio and live on Pina Coladas for a few weeks, if it gets him away from violent Canadians.
Lily just smiles and asks Robin if she's "inappropriately turned on right now."
Horrified, Robin sits back in the booth. "Lily, he was shot!" But she spoils it all with a giggle.
"I'm gonna drink rum from the navels of nubile chicks!" Barney continues, oblivious.
But there are details, oh so many details, that bother Marshall. Like why the hospital didn't call Barney's emergency contact when he was brought in, and why was Barney even allowed home. There was so much wrong with this picture.
"Dude, do you wanna stay with us tonight?" Ted asks Barney, gesturing upwards. It pulls Marshall out of his reverie. There's something lingering; that same instinct that he felt in the back of the cab. Like just being near Barney is putting them all in danger right now.
It isn't right. It isn't right at all.
Then Barney gets a call on his cell phone.
He takes it, snapping "Stinson" down the line and waiting while, presumably, someone on the other end of the line said their piece.
There's a gap, a moment, maybe even a millisecond when Barney's fingers go slack and he almost drops the phone. Everyone else is talking and Marshall's pretty sure he's the only one who sees it.
Nobody else notices the sheer terror that claims his friend in that moment, before he tries to crawl back behind his mask. Trouble is, Barney's mask is wearing thin.
Suddenly, Marshall really doesn't want Barney staying with Robin and Ted. He doesn't want the guy anywhere near any of them.
It's like someone's painted a target on his friend's forehead in thick black marker. It's like it's open season. And Marshall knows that it's now way past time for him to act.
*--*--*
Marshall almost confesses everything to Lily that night, while he's struggling to formulate a plan to help Barney. Then Lily's leg curls around his and she pulls herself on top of him, slow and lithe.
As Lily's sweet lips descend on his, all he wants to do is confide in another soul. It's killing him to keep this all in.
But it might kill just her to let it all out.
*--*--*
Two weeks later
Things deteriorate badly. Even at Marshall's level, it's possible to pick up office gossip if you keep your ear to the ground, and there's no doubt that the hot topic, the thing the higher-ups really want to be kept quiet, is the decline of Barney Stinson.
There's talk of meetings missed and mistakes made. There are complaints from his PA about paperwork going astray and angry midnight telephone calls.
And then, on Friday, the inevitable happens.
Marshall hears it all second-hand from Ted, how Barney's lost his job. The way Barney told Ted, the altercation in the ETA went beyond legendary, past epic, and through to utterly fucked-up. It basically consisted of Barney sucker punching Billson and threatening to gut his family and hang them out to dry on the Queensboro' Bridge.
Apparently the whole thing's been caught on videotape and Marshall wonders vaguely if the company will even consider prosecuting Barney.
He very much hopes that they don't think his friend is worthy of expending any more energy on. Deep down Marshall hides the swell of triumph he feels.
No one suspects a thing. Least of all, Barney.
*--*--*
And still, Marshall never says a word to Lily. Never tells her about how he's kept Barney doped to the eyeballs these last couple of weeks, by slipping his hospital meds into his Red Bull.
How he's tampered with Barney's email, contacts and calendar so it looks as though Barney has become an itinerant screw up.
How he's falsified documentation, switched papers.
How he's systematically sabotaged and destroyed his friend's career in order to save his life.
Nope, Marshall never says a word. He smiles, he makes small talk. But somehow it still eats him up inside.
*--*--*
Barney and Robin get back together.
It happens in a weird, roundabout way that none of them really understand, least of all Robin and Barney themselves.
It happens because, for the first time in many years, Barney actually needs someone. And for the first time in an equally high number of years, Robin feels needed. Barney needs Robin to help him rebuild, because she's so uncompromising. Robin uses the brute force approach in order to take control, and for the first time since they've know Barney, he lets someone else lead him.
There are no rings, or wedding bells, or blue orchestras. There are no flowers or chocolates. But Barney's arm is always draped across Robin's shoulders, and Robin's smile is soft and warm. They all know what's going on.
It's never said out loud, but they all know.
*--*--*
Evening
Marshall sits and stares at Mr Inch, Director of Special Projects. He sits and stares and ignores the ache in his head, in his heart, because he has to think.
"I'd like to offer you a job," Inch had said.
"But I've got a job," was Marshall's first thought, but then he realized what Inch meant. He was being offered Barney's job.
"This isn't the kind of job you apply for," Inch tells him. It's the kind of job you win. Dead men's shoes.
The ETA is brightly lit, there are no windows. It's disorienting and bleak, containing only one table and two chairs. Marshall honestly had no idea that the room was used to transition employees up the hierarchy of the organisation as well as out of it.
His heart beats harder, thump-thumping, as he considers how to phrase his rejection of this offer. It speeds up even more as he realizes that it's not the kind of job you can reject.
Inch slides a folder across the table towards Marshall, and he expects it to contain and offer, a contract, the details of the payoff he'll be getting in order to sell his soul. In a way, it does.
There are medical records inside, tests. His wife's name is on the docket, and although there's plenty of jargon, there are many words he understands.
Barren.
Unable to bear children.
Unable to carry a baby to term.
Unable to ever have the family they both wanted.
Marshall's mouth goes dry when he realizes what this means.
"We can help you," Mr Inch says, showing his teeth. He looks more shark than human being. "We have the finest doctors. Marshall," the man says smoothly. "We've watched your career with interest. You're smart, you're ruthless and you're incredibly discrete. We can use you and you sure can use us."
Marshall slowly closes the folder and a thought occurs to him.
The devil is in the detail.
Marshall remembers a certain videotape, a certain young, optimistic young guy with a fringe of long blonde hair and penchant for sad ballads played on an electric keyboard.
"What did you offer Barney?" Marshall asks. "All those years ago? When Barney joined Special Projects, how did you offer to help him?"
Inch looks weirdly pleased by the question, while Marshall just remembers the fear in Barney's eyes when he got that call at the bar, just after he was shot. He also remembers the bruises around Barney's throat.
Inch nods his head and taps his fingers on the folder, as though waiting patiently for Marshall to figure it all out for himself.
Marshall remembers that Barney's Mom had cancer once. Barney was so sure she was going to die that he hired an actress to fool her into thinking he had a girlfriend.
The words get stuck in Marshall's throat, even as he utters them, daring Inch to deny his suspicions. "Barney's Mom. You cured her?"
The clock on the wall ticks in the silence.
"We have the finest doctors."
Inch holds Marshall's gaze, then reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out a folded sheet of paper, handing it to Marshall, followed by a pen.
"Sign here," Inch says. Two words, like gunfire.
Marshall squeezes his eyes shut, steels himself, and signs. What choice does he have?