Disclaimer: do not own Transformers.

Summary: Oneshot. Movieverse. A crack story within a crack story. Our intrepid trio's reaction to a certain paranoid mech's borderline stalker issues. Humans: 1, Red Alert: 0.

Acknowledgements: Inspiration from TheMinttu's "A Large Coffee and a Lambo," in which Red Alert's all-seeing camera is ever trained on an annoyed Sam. Red Alert's paranoia and disdain about the human allies also comes from TheMinttu.

Author notes: I concur that Red Alert's paranoia, in general, is well-placed. However, this is a crack story. : )

Smile for the Camera

At first, Mikaela found it aggravating, Sam found it annoying, and Miles found it amusing. After a few weeks, they, along with all the other humans stationed at the Autobot base, found it downright insulting.

Lennox, who really was among the most mature of the human allies, had pointed out to them that humans had taken Bumblebee away and had tortured him, not to mention those poor sparklings that Sector Seven created and destroyed. Really, Lennox had said, they were lucky that any Autobots trusted them at all.

To which Mikaela had pointed out that Cybertronians hadbrought the war on Earth, and had tried to use Earth's machinery to take over the universe, and had killed humans. She pointed out that Red Alert lumping them together with Sector Seven was like Lennox lumping the Autobots together with the Decepticons.

To which they engaged in a semi-polite argument that ended with neither side winning or losing, and ended on good terms. Mikaela wasn't punished in anyway for insubordination to her "commanding officer," and in turn, Lennox didn't find his new entertainment system sabotaged in any way.

However, by the end of the second month, even Lennox was getting tired of the swivelling of cameras and Red Alert's distrustful and openly disdainful attitude. The attitude they could deal with—they laughed at Sunstreaker's, and openly laughed at Red Alert's. But the cameras!

The cameras were everywhere. In the rec room, in the training room, in the shooting grounds…They were barely a meter apart in the designed-for-human portion of the Autobot base. The only reason they weren't in the human bathrooms, Mikaela was sure, was because of Optimus' intervention.

Mikaela instinctively knew where cameras were. It was almost a sixth sense. The most obvious ones—one for a room and one for a stretch of corridor—weren't the only ones. Others were embedded in the walls, in objects, disguised in wallpaper and in pieces of furniture. Mikaela could see them all, or at the very least know their general location.

Sam instinctively knew how to read Mikaela. If she frowned slightly, it meant that there was one human-trained camera in the room. If clenched her fists, it meant that there were two cameras in the room. If she walked forcefully and swiftly, it meant that there were three cameras in the room. If she took out whatever electronic she happened to have with her and proceed to rip apart the wires and chips in an almost murderous frenzy, and then proceed to put it back together again with the precision and careful movements of a surgeon, it meant that there were so many cameras in the room that she was seriously thinking about barging down the door to the security room and do some beautiful rewiring.

Miles was probably the last human to retain his good humour at this predicament. He smilingly waved to the easy-to-see cameras (no need to give away the advantage that Mikaela's interesting talent gave them) and even made faces at them once or twice. So, it was a surprise when Miles made the first move.

"Guys, I have a confession to make," Miles said one day as he, Sam, and Mikaela sat in the human rec room at the Autobot base.

"What is it, Miles?" Sam asked distractedly before taking a sip from his pop bottle. All three of them were quite aware and were quite annoyed at the five cameras in the room swivelling to focus on them.

"I have a crush on Prowl."

Sam sprayed his Pepsi all over the table at Miles' announcement. Mikaela, who had taken apart her CD player and was putting it back together with a pair of tweezers, nearly snapped the delicate piece that she was working on.

"What?!" they said as they simultaneously recovered from their shock.

Miles merely blinked at their reactions. "Why are you looking at me like that? His stoic nature, his commanding stature, his unfailing logic…it's just so appealing, y'know?" Miles said, looking off dreamily just to the right of "hidden" camera #2. "You don't think I'm weird, do you?" he asked in slight concern, looking once again at his friends.

There was a pause. They could almost hear the gears and wires of their watcher beginning to freeze.

"It's okay Miles," Sam said calmly as he wiped off the pop from the table. "I understand."

"You do?!" Mikaela asked. She looked at both of them like they were insane.

Miles caught Sam's calculating look, and knew that he had a fellow conspirator. Don't pick Bumblebee, Miles thought, hoping that somehow the words would float around in the air and somehow transmit to Sam. It's too obvious. I bet half the base is romanticizing about Mikaela/Sam/Bumblebee. Heck, it's my OT3! You have to go for something large.

"Yes, of course I do," Sam said with a straight face. "Mikaela," he said, facing his girlfriend, "you know I love you, but you see, Miles' attraction to Prowl is similar to my attraction to Sunstreaker." He took a sip from his pop.

The mech in the security room was watching and listening to this, optics wide and with bad mental images flooding his processor. The image of Miles and Prowl having a candlelight dinner was immediately juxtaposed with Sam and Sunstreaker frolicking in the park. He tried desperately to purge both images.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Sam asked innocently. "You two know better than anyone how I find the whole 'bad-boy' thing so appealing."

"Well you two are just weird," Mikaela said finally. Over in the security room, a mech was thinking: Finally. A voice of reason. "At least my fantasies are plausible," she continued.

"Huh?" Sam and Miles asked. This was precisely the sentiment of the mech in the security room.

"Last night," she said, taking a strand of her hair and twirled it absent-mindedly, "I dreamt that I was on a date with Ratchet and Ironhide." She sighed then, and gave then giggled. "It was a great dream. What?" she asked, in response to their confounded/ astonished/ impressed faces. "I have a thing for older men."

Sam and Miles gave a quick glance, as if to say, She wins.

"Well," Sam said, "as your boyfriend, I have to say that I'm crushed. But as your fellow unrequited lover, I have to say right on!"

Elsewhere, the unfortunate mech in the security room was thinking: WHAT THE SCRAP IS THIS?! THIS MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER! Logic processors…freezing…but...I cannot tear my optics away! Noooooo!"

The sound of Mikaela and Sam giving each other a hi-five was lost in the sound of a resounding crash that echoed through the Autobot base. It was the beautiful sound of someone's logic processors freezing. The teenagers looked at one another, each of them immediately feeling a weight being lifted off them.

"Did you hear something?"

"No, I didn't hear a thing."

"Me either."

They did the rest of their homework peacefully over the noise of tools being thrown and Ratchet's enraged yell of, "Who or what the slag did it this time?!"