Author: 1angelette

Fandom: HIMYM

Title: The Stinson Legacy; or, Yeah, That Kid
Rating: PG-13 for some adult themes, a little profanity
Summary:AU. Today, we find out what happened last week, what happens this week, and what will happen next week.

Spoilers: 100% compliancy through Miracles. Quasi-compliancy through 4x01. Mentions through 4x04.

Characters/pairings: Barney/Robin, OC (see title), some ensemble and Ted/Stella + Lily/Marshall

Length: About 7000 words.
Notes: ….Product of a rabid fangirl with a birthday concept and a little cutesy B/R spawn. This rabid fangirl is very surprised that this fic actually became completed. She did babyfic before Cobie and Alyson made it popular. Take that! This was my first HIMYM fic. Yeah.

I.

The four of them were sitting at their table, and there was a distinct imbalance.

Barney was on one side, chin atop crossed arms, staring miserably at an oversized cupcake with "3" and "4" candles. Lily and Marshall sat on the other side of the table, Ted at the head, looking somewhat sad and sympathetic. Marshall and Lily had recently shelled out for a non-crooked apartment, while Ted wasn't getting much lucrative work lately, so this was about as good as the birthday party could get.

"This is the worst birthday ever," Barney muttered. What he did not mutter out loud would have been alluding to the distinct imbalance, or the worst decision ever.

Mumble mumble why the hell did I make her promise to apply mumble…

"Come on, you have to have had worse birthdays!" Lily countered. "This is one out of thirty-four! It can't be the worst."

He looked up a little to stare incredulously at her. "It's the worst birthday ever."

Ted frowned. "Barney, what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing is wrong with me!" he insisted. "I… I'm going through a… a…. a brief cease in the complete flow of godliness that is Barney Stinson."
Marshall rolled his eyes. "You never have dry spells." He thought for a second. "Hey, you would never admit that so readily! Ted's right, there's definitely something wrong with you!"

Barney sighed, closed his eyes, and blew out the candles.

He only had one wish.

II.

For some reason, he was left in the apartment to watch the goat while the others went to find that one guy who had called in and said he wanted one. He did not understand why he of all people had to watch the goat. Yes, it probably wasn't the best idea to leave a goat entirely unsupervised in the apartment. But it was locked inside the bathroom! Why did he have to sit around and be completely bored?

Then the front door opened with a loud creak.

"Hey, anyone here?"

Goat-watching suddenly became the most legendary thing he had ever done.

"Robin?"

"Yeah!" She embraced him briefly before looking around at the room. "My, things have changed…"
"My? My? Oh, god, please don't tell me you've picked up snobby British syntax!"

"I have not!" she insisted, half-averting her eyes with a soft laugh.
"You are a liar, Scherbatsky. And do you know what the only cure for lying is?"

"What…?" The woman rolled her eyes.

"Laser tag."

Robin finally smiled.

III.

It was January again, but he wasn't as depressed as last year, because once again she floated momentarily into his life, this time into McLaren's, and the world consisted almost entirely of angels and rainbows for over twenty-four hours.

Also, this time she brought a cake with her. A real cake, with thirty-five candles and ice cream and a kiss on the cheek.

He tried to convince himself that his favorite part was the gourmet, guaranteed-to-give-you-diabetes icing, but that was a lie that collapsed faster than a tower made during the Jenga drinking game.

He also tried to think that all the bimbos he'd had since the last time he saw her were somehow worth more to him than that one half-kiss, but that was also a lie.

IV.

The next time she brought an elaborate three-story, chocolate-death, Mayan-step pyramid that was a thing of beauty. She was, of course, also a thing of beauty. But there was something she was hiding, something she seemed to not be able to tell him. For the life of him, he couldn't figure it out, so he decided to try to politely ignore it.

V.

Another birthday passed, and another and another. And then, the doorbell of his apartment rang.

"Hi," a voice he hadn't expected to hear for another year said.

"Hey!" a much higher-pitched voice that he had never heard before said.

"…Hello?" Barney responded.

There was a little five-or-so kid standing next to Robin, holding her hand and smiling up at him. Robin laughed nervously.

"Oh, yes, this is my… second cousin's son. She, er, had to go somewhere and needed me to take him off her hands for a couple weeks, and I've, uh, told him lots of stories about all the barmy things I used to do with my four wacky mates, so he wanted to come to New York!" She grinned in a very worried, uncomfortable way and laughed very, very nervously.

He thought about it for 0.83 seconds before deciding it was a lie. There were three very obvious clues towards this. One, the boy was blonde. Honestly. Robin simply did not have any blonde family members, as far as he knew. Two, disregarding the hair, the kid looked like a freaking Robin clone – he couldn't be just a cousin. And three, Robin was doing an uncharacteristically bad job of lying. A really bad job of lying. The last fact brought with it a painful memory of that last secret she couldn't keep.

The little boy quickly provided one more clue. "Are you one of mu—my Aunt Robin's-" he said this very carefully and pedantically "-really crazy friends?"

"I," he replied nervously, "am one of her legendary friends."

Thinking about this later, he would decide that his first clue should have been that the whole thing went far, far too nervously.