Prowl was in his tree, meditating. His peace didn't last long, though. It rarely did.
"Ohhhhh, ninjabot..."
Oh Primus, it was Bumblebee. Prowl didn't look down. Perhaps if Prowl pretended he wasn't there, the yellow mech would go away.
"I've got something to shoooow yoooooou," Bee shouted from below.
Prowl gritted his teeth. Bee had better not have done something to Ratchet again. Just last week, Bumblebee had thought it was funny to put wheel clamps on Ratchet while the older bot was napping in vehicle mode, then wake him up with a pressure washer. Prowl could not ensure Bee's safety if he continued to torment his teammates like that.
Prowl persisted in ignoring him.
Unfortunately, Bumblebee was determined to get his attention. "It involves video footage of a certain stealthbot and a very pretty motorbike."
Oh slag. The Honda Blackbird.
"You have that on film?" Prowl peered down from his perch, at the grinning 'bot below.
"You must have been too wasted to know you were being recorded, huh? Damn, Prowl, you're such a lightweight."
Bumblebee could talk. It was common knowledge that the yellow mech couldn't hold his high-grade, which was why they'd made sure he was out on patrol (along with Sari and Bulkhead) when Prowl, Optimus and Ratchet had opened up Ratchet's secret stash of the evil stuff. Bulkhead had known what they'd been up to, but didn't mind: he was teetotal, after an unfortunate incident back on Cybertron that had resulted in massive property damage and a temporary loss of hearing in Bumblebee's left audio sensor. And, as Bulkhead wasn't the sort of 'bot to blab other peoples' secrets (at least, not deliberately), Prowl had assumed that Bumblebee suspected nothing.
Once Bee, Sari and Bulkhead were out of the way, Prowl, Ratchet and Optimus had got... kind of drunk. Ratchet might have been capable of slugging back the sauce like it was regular oil, but Prowl and Optimus had never been big drinkers. 'All things in moderation,' was Optimus' motto, and Prowl had always disliked the prospect of losing self-control. However, they were light years from home, stuck on an alien planet with a handful of Decepticons - led by Megatron, no less - and the Elite Guard had been as helpful as a screen door on a submarine. If that wasn't a good reason to get inebriated, then nothing was. Prowl and Optimus had ended up consuming more of the high-grade than they had originally meant to.
Optimus had got all maudlin and delivered a very heartfelt speech about what they all meant to him.
Ratchet had told them both in excruciating detail about the pains in his magna fuses that he'd been having lately.
And Prowl had decided to sneak outside before he did something to embarrass himself around his fellow Autobots. As he didn't dare try moving around in alt mode (he did not want the accolade of being the first Cybertronian with a DUI), he opted to take a walk, hoping that it would clear his head. This was probably a pretty foolish thing to do, in retrospect. If Prowl had fully appreciated just how drunk he was, he would have spent the rest of the night in his room and waited for it to wear off. Going out in public? Stupid, stupid idea.
During his wanderings, he'd seen a bike - the Honda Blackbird - in the parking lot of a nearby factory. It was odd to see a classy girl like that all by herself so (in a moment of what the humans called, 'Dutch courage') he'd tried conversing with her. She'd been very quiet. At the time, Prowl had just assumed she was shy.
And Bumblebee had witnessed it all. Great.
Prowl glowered at him. "How did you...?"
"Oh, wouldn't you like to know. Y'know, I should upload this to YouTube. Prowl, aloof ninja of the Autobots, hitting on some poor sap's bike."
Prowl replied with an irritable huff of his vents.
"Of course, I could forget about the incident entirely," Bee said, seductively. "But you'd have to do me a little favor first..."
Prowl swatted at a makeup artist who was trying to polish his visor. "Why couldn't you get Bulkhead to do this with you?" he asked Bee.
Bee shrugged. "He gets shy. And he says that cameras always make him look fat."
The makeup artist finished her last-minute touching up, then climbed down from her stepladder and left Prowl in peace. The cameras were about to start rolling. Humans hurried about, making final adjustments to lighting and audio equipment. Bumblebee straightened his shoulders and tried to make himself look taller, while Prowl gave him one last, 'one day I will murder you in cold blood' look.
The director glanced around, then took a deep breath. "Aaand... action!"
Bumblebee gave the cameras a swarf-eating grin. "Fighting crime can take its toll on my paint job. That's why I use Autoglym Bodywork Shampoo and Conditioner," he said, in perfectly rehearsed Japanese.
The cameras focused on Prowl.
"It contains a balanced blend of surface-active ingredients to carefully lift traffic film without harm to polished paintwork and trim," Prowl said, very flatly, without pausing for breath. His lines were also in Japanese. He had always wanted to learn the language, just... not like this.
"CUT!"
Oh, for the love of...
The director stood up from his chair, and fixed the taller of the two autobots with a stare. "Let's try that again. Prowl, this time, could you try to be a bit more... enthusiastic?" The human's eyes narrowed. "You don't look like you want to sell a product. You look like you want to kill all humans. Could you smile, at least?"
"I am smiling," Prowl replied, and pulled his mouth in to a horrible rictus of a mirthless grin.
"C'mon, Prowl," Bumblebee wheedled. "What would your girlfriend say? Oh wait, nothing. Because she can't talk. Haha!"
Prowl did not dignify that with a reply. He gritted his teeth as another makeup artist hurried towards him with a bottle of spray wax in hand. Evidently, the matte black bits of his chassis weren't exactly camera-friendly.
Right. That was it. This had gone far enough. Prowl turned to the director, intent on subjecting the man to an irritable diatribe before stalking out of the building. The stealthbot opened his mouth to speak... Only to be interrupted by someone shouting.
From the back of the studio, a familiar voice cussed and grouched at the security goons.
It was Ratchet. What the frag was he doing here?
Ratchet had fought his way through the rent-a-cops, and was now storming towards the set. Primus knew how the medic had managed to locate them; perhaps Bulkhead had accidentally tipped him off. Bumblebee looked as surprised to see the old 'bot as Prowl was.
"Bumblebee, what in the Pit are you doing?" Ratchet demanded. "And Prowl! Are you in on this foolishness, as well? You're meant to be the sensible one!"
The human employees of the studio scurried away from the irate medic. It was usually wise to give large angry alien robots a wide berth. Sure, they were meant to be the good guys, but that just meant they were slightly less likely to squish you on purpose.
Prowl looked awkward, while Bumblebee was indignant. "I'm just earning some Earth money on the side! Do you know how much humans pay for this sort of stuff? Besides, it's just a 20-second advert! It'll only be aired in Japan! It'll probably never be seen by an American audience. Lots of famous humans do adverts like this."
Ratchet stomped closer to the smaller mech. "Primus damn it, you little punk. The Autobot name isn't some gimmick that you can use for material gain! Sometimes, I'd swear to Primus that there isn't a shred of Cybertronian dignity in that skinny yellow chassis of yours."
"Hey!" Bumblebee protested. "This advert is TOTALLY dignified. You should see the script that they originally wanted us to do - we were gonna have to sing a song about tar remover! While wearing bunny ears! It still would've been worth it, though... Seriously, Ratchet, you should see the merchandising deals that the humans have been proposing to me. There's already a company that wants to make action figures of us! The franchise could be huge... OW!"
Ratchet had grabbed one of Bumblebee's horns, and was already dragging him out of the studio. "You sound just like Swindle. Wait until Optimus hears about this."
Prowl just shrugged at the director, then followed the two other 'bots out.
The studio went ahead and aired the advert anyway. A few weeks after Prowl and Bumblebee's abortive attempt at commercial acting, a video of it appeared on the internet. Prowl was relieved to find that the studio had edited him out of the final version, while Bumblebee was delighted to discover that he'd gained a fanbase of Japanese teenage girls.
Prowl really did believe that Bee had forgotten about his drunken conversation with the bike, until he entered his room one day and found a tiny model of a Honda Blackbird on his desk. After some consideration, Prowl decided to keep it.