Done for a bunny on the tfbunnyfarm LJ community. I'm not a cop, and I don't know anything about police work, but I sincerely hope this is enjoyable anyway. And I don't know much about the "Animated" human villains, sorry... so I borrowed one from G1! Not that it really affects the story at all.

This takes place between "Fistful of Energon" and "Black Friday".

"Transformers:Animated" © Hasbro.

oOo

Captain Fanzone hated a lot of things - lawyers, kids, technology - and he made sure everybody knew it. But the only time he hated his job was when he had to do hostage negotiation. Especially when the hostage-holder was a prison escapee who had somehow acquired a fragment of an alien artifact - the "SparkAll", or something to that effect - causing a few of those Autobots to tag along as he tried to track this weirdo through downtown Detroit.

The Autobots with him - Prowl, Ratchet, and that annoying yellow one - weren't making his job any easier, either.

"Bumblebee, can't you keep quiet for five nanokliks?" Prowl was exasperated. "We'd have this Dr. Arkeville cornered already if he hadn't heard you."

"That's funny, Prowl, because we'd probably have some Decepticons offline if they hadn't heard you," the yellow bot said, alluding to some incident about a week back, which Fanzone didn't really want to know about.

The cop and Ratchet sighed in unison.

"Will you let that go already?" the motorcycle glared at his teammate, completely ignoring everyone's irritation. Fanzone figured he was ticked and tried to block out their petty argument as he grabbed for his binoculars.

However, that annoying yellow one's voice was shrill and difficult to ignore. "No way, Prowl! You allied yourself with a Decepticon!"

"For the greater good."

"Oh, right. And I bet all the work he did on your body was for the greater good too, hm?"

"Mute it, you two. It can wait," Ratchet tried to break apart his comrades, but to no avail: Bumblebee never shut up once he got started, and Prowl refused to be in the wrong.

"Bumblebee, I already apologised to you, which is more than you've ever done for me, so I don't know what else you want from me. Let it go."

"Apologise? Why the slag should I apologise!? I'm not the one drooling some Boba Fett wannabe's afterburners!"

"It wasn't like that," the ninja-bot insisted, blushing slightly.

"Can't you shut them up?" Fanzone asked the ambulence who sighed again.

"I'm trying," Ratchet placed a hand on Prowl's shoulder, to try and calm him down, but was brushed off as the motorcycle grew increasingly angrier with Bumblebee's words:

"Don't even try to pull that slag with me, Prowl - I wasn't activated yesterday. I heard all about the way you acted with Lockout!"

"Lockdown," Prowl corrected, which proved the wrong thing to say to the angry Bumblebee.

"Oh, excuse me - who cares!? And this isn't the first time you've done this to me either! Keeping secrets with Bulkhead - my best friend, I might add. And don't think I didn't notice your flirting with Jazz when he visited!"

Fanzone arched an eyebrow. This conversation was veering into the weird, and even Ratchet's repeated efforts weren't enough to stop it.

"Your prescious Lockdown is just energon-icing on the oil-cake!" Bumblebee shouted, then opening his mouth to continue this rant when the motorcycle interrupted him with an almost scarily cold tone of voice.

"You're making a fool of yourself. You never asked about the Dinobots, and Jazz's relationship with me was purely professional. And you are in no position to get angry at me without being a hypocrite."

"Hypocrite!?" the young bot cried indignantly, but was cut off:

"Lockdown means nothing to me. Can you say the same for Optimus?"

"What? I've never looked at Boss-bot in my -"

"I saw you!" Prowl yelled, causing to Bumblebee shrink back, optics blazing angrily, but vocaliser silent for once.

Ratchet and Fanzone both gaped at the angry motorcycle. The medic had never heard Prowl yell before, and the cop, though almost positive he didn't want to know, couldn't tear himself away from the argument. It was like a nasty car crash. Or his wife after she'd had children.

Prowl was glaring at his shorter comrade with all the icy coldness of a Decepticon, and Bumblebee couldn't find the words to reply to that, other than stuttering, "But... but I'd... Prowl... I..."

Ratchet grumbled to himself for a few seconds before calmly saying, "Bumblebee, Prowl already told you he was wrong for working with Lockdown, and if you didn't always hold a grudge, you two wouldn't be having this dumb argument, and we'd have that AllSpark fragment in our servos. And Prowl, I don't think Bumblebee feels anything for Optimus other than respect in admiration, or else why would he be banging bumpers with you? You both need to calm the frag down, kiss and make up, and help us catch this Dr. Arkeville!"

"Wait - what!?" Fanzone dropped his binoculars, causing all three Autobots to stare at him as if he'd grown a set of tentacles. "'Banging bumpers'? 'Kiss and make up'?" The cop supressed a gag. "I really hope you aren't implying what I think you're implying!"

Bumblebee and Prowl both looked at their feet, not sure what to say to that. Ratchet, however, smirked, amused.

"I'm implying that for once I've been able to recharge every night this week because I haven't had to listen to these two screaming out each other's name in the throes of passion - "

"Stop right there!" the human was unable to hold back a second gag. "You know I could have quite happily lived the rest of my life without learning that giant alien robots have sex drives!"

Bumblebee was the first to speak, "Yeah, well... maybe it was kinda idiotic for me to be jealous of a Decepticon..."

"Maybe I shouldn't have kept secrets from you and lost my temper," Prowl answered quietly.

"Yeah, you shouldn- Ow!" the yellow mech yelped when Ratchet smacked him in the head. "So... we cool, ninja-bot?"

Said "ninja-bot" sighed. "Come here."

"Ugh," Captain Fanzone shuddered, wanting nothing more than to go home and pour bleach into his brain in hopes of forgetting this whole ordeal. "This is why I hate hostage negotiation..."

-fin-

I hope you all enjoyed that!