Title: Robin Scherbatsky: Queen of Class

Characters: Robin, Barney, Barney/Robin

Word Count: 1,529

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Not mine. sniff

Spoilers: Post 3x20, "Miracles."

Summary: Robin Scherbatsky didn't need anybody to tell her that she was a smart, sophisticated lady with legs that could make paraplegics stand to attention, if you knew what she meant.

Author's Notes: This is a follow-up to Barney Stinson: God Among Men. My first sequel! beams Just my second fic for HIMYM, and no beta due to my horrific lack of patience, so any feedback is most appreciated. Thanks for your time!

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Robin Scherbatsky didn't need anybody to tell her that she was a smart, sophisticated lady with legs that could make paraplegics stand to attention, if you knew what she meant.

She knew it and, she suspected, so did everyone else. She was sexy, intelligent, successful, and to top it all off she knew how to have a good time and let loose a bit without reducing herself to the barbaric, jungle ways of most women.

Not to say that she wouldn't have been good at those ways. Robin had pulled her fair share of hair and had used her stiletto as a weapon at least twice, and both times those bitches had been freaking dominated. Nobody talked smack about Canadian hockey and left without a black eye and some bald spots.

But that wasn't the point.

The point was, Robin knew what a catch she was and that she could easily get just about any man that she wanted. So, she had standards that echoed her own sophistication. After all, she had her good name to maintain.

Robin Scherbatsky: queen of class.

So it had been more than a little terrifying when she started to question her own judgment in regards to refinement.

Not about most things. She was still right about putting her job first (success wasn't temporary, but most 'love' was), clothes (95 class with an underlying 5 slut, just to keep them guessing), kids (sticky, loud and messy – not to mention she'd have to shove a football out of her uterus), drinks and cigars (the right scotch and a nice Cuban was a combination better than any other mortal vice. Except for maybe chocolate), marriage (forever was too long to promise anything to anybody, and white really wasn't her color anyway), and guns (people tended to take you more seriously when you could tell them with confidence that you were capable of ending their life from a football field away).

But there were other, far more disturbing, things that Robin was having second thoughts about.

Actually, just one thing. Barney Stinson.

She didn't think much of it, at first. They had sex, so it was only logical that due to this - surprisingly impressive - experience she would become a bit more attached to him. Not a lot, of course, but just enough so that the fondness she felt for him started to even out the overwhelming sense of ick.

And then, three months ago, he had gotten hurt. Badly. By running in front of a bus to get to Ted and prove his bro-love, no less.

Men were morons.

Especially this particular one.

So why couldn't she stop thinking about him?

Because placing herself on Barney's arm wouldn't be classy. By definition he was shallow, intentionally despicable, and low. He wasn't a smart option, either. Anything Barney started was going to end in her doom and his ultimate enjoyment. And as for sexy…

Maybe he was a little sexy.

But that didn't change the fact that he was the furthest thing from class that any self-respecting woman could stoop to, next to Ghengis Kahn.

And Mr. Kahn was looking more appealing by the minute.

Thoughts thus occupied by the blond sleazebag, Robin decided to skip out of work and go to MacLaren's. Hopefully, she would be able to drink enough to drown out his stupid face in a drunken haze.

Of course, who should she find when she arrived and scoped out the bar but the very man she had been intending to suffocate in a sea of scotch.

Figures.

So, after a brief interaction in which Barney knocked down some bar stools, went through puberty, and swooned in an embarrassing (and slightly worrying – he hadn't gotten out of his casts all that long ago) fashion, Robin invited him over to her booth, picked up a scotch, and proceeded to try to ignore him as best as possible.

In retrospect, she knew she shouldn't have invited him over. It was only encouraging whatever mental illness she had developed due to sleeping with him. Maybe that's what it was – an STD unique to Barney Stinson alone. Something completely beyond her control, and therefore, capable of explaining why she had gone insane.

Robin was viewing this as the only valid explanation as to why she had lost her sense of class for a man like Barney.

Robin was mid contemplative sip when said man plopped himself down across from her.

She jumped at seeing him, globs of scotch flying out of he glass and onto her blouse.

See? He was already turning her into a slob.

"Let's cut the crap, Scherbatsky."

Robin sent him a brief glare before turning her attention back to the globs on her shirt, grabbing a napkin to wipe at the stains.

"There was crap to cut?" she asked.

Barney ignored her, doing a good job of avoiding looking at her chest as she continued rubbing at the scotch. (Which begged the question, why was he making the effort at all?)

"I'm awesome, and you've gotten far enough on the scale that I'm willing to say that you're almost awesome too."

She rolled her eyes. "Gee, thanks Barney."

Barney nodded his head graciously. "Point is, we had sex and it was good. Let's do it again."

Robin stopped scrubbing at her blouse and blinked at him.

He didn't exactly know how to woo a girl, did he?

"No."

"How about dinner then?"

The napkin fell out of her limp hands. "Huh?"

She tried to close her gaping mouth, but the process was suddenly more complicated than it should have been.

Barney loosened his tie and took another swing of his drink. "Dinner. Two people, eating food in the same vicinity. You, me, some steak and mashed potatoes."

Robin mimicked Barney's swing, placing her glass back onto the table along with her elbows. "You're asking me out to dinner?"

Barney gave a theatrical shrug. "Well we've gotta do something, and if it's not going to be sex it might as well be eating red meat."

This was strange.

No, this was beyond strange. This was like she had been transported to an alternate reality in which Lily beat up innocent school children and Ted stopped being pretentious.

She blinked at him. "Barney, you don't ask women out to dinner."

"Sure I do." He took another (large) swing of scotch, coughing a bit as it went down his throat. "Interested?"

"No." She meant to give one, confident, scoff, but what came out was a long string of giggles.

Damn her inability to keep a straight face under pressure!

And more importantly, damn Barney's knowledge of it.

He raised an amused eyebrow. "You're giggling, Scherbatsky."

"Because it's funny that you're asking me out to dinner."

There was another giggle-fest.

Dammit.

Barney just sent her a smug grin.

Bastard.

She leaned forward onto the table, staring at him intently. "I'm not agreeing to anything, but if I was, what is this going to be? Just dinner?"

"That's a possibility."

"Dinner and sex?"

Barney's smile widened. "That would be preferable."

"Dinner and sex and-?" Robin gulped. She didn't really want to think about an 'and.'

Fortunately, Barney seemed no more inclined to the concept.

In fact, he seemed petrified by it. "'And'? No 'and'!" He let out a strained squeak that might have been a laugh. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Scherbatsky."

Thank God.

He had pulled his tie off by this point. "Let's just say that there is potential here for an unspecific 'and' should the need or desire for this 'and' arise."

"But the 'and' doesn't come standard with the dinner?"

Dinner was one thing. Sex was another. 'And' was an idea she didn't want to think about enough to give a proper name, much less consider committing to.

Barney gave an emphatic nod in agreement. "This is a dinner-with-potential-sex package only, no 'and' included."

Robin eyed him critically. "And what if I decline on the sex option?"

He took another drink, finishing off his scotch and then looking her directly in the eye. "Then let's have dinner."

This was not classic Barney Stinson. Barney Stinson did not maintain eye contact when the goodies were several inches lower. He did not agree to dinner without sex in the goodnight deal. And he never, ever, put himself on the chopping block with nothing to gain.

The only thing he wanted here, as far as she could tell, was a dinner with her.

Robin was a smart, sophisticated lady, the queen of class. And she knew that Barney was vile, would leave her worse off by the end of it all, and wanted nothing but his own satisfaction out of the deal.

Or at least, that was how he used to be, back before he got flustered just by asking her out to dinner.

Robin pounded down the last of her scotch and sat up in the booth.

Clinking her glass down onto the table, she relinquished her crown and decided it was high time she did something stupid.

Barney did, after all, look great in a suit.

Particularly the birthday one.

"So, where are we eating?"