Though they had a somewhat uneasy restart, Smokescreen had eventually got back to Jack to let him know that once his grounding was over they could go and have fun. Jack tentatively pointed out there was still nothing stopping them from having fun at the base, but Smokescreen darkly retorted that there was and Jack knew he was talking about Arcee.

He couldn't really fault the mech for it, so he figured he'd have to get Arcee to be a little lighter on Smokescreen so they could build on what he thought was a tentatively hopeful friendship. It was too strong a word and implied too much familiarity between them for Jack to call them friends because they quite honestly weren't right now.

But that's why he described it as hopeful after all.

When he'd gone home that night, he stayed behind in the garage to talk with Arcee. "Could you, uh, lighten up on freaking Smokescreen out?"

Arcee sounded suspicious. "What did he do now?"

Jack winced at the tone. "He didn't do anything; I just wanna hang out with him that's all."

"You…you want to be around him after he almost got you hurt?" Arcee asked incredulously.

"Now, to be fair, it was still my fault too." Jack replied and he couldn't stress that part enough. "And I really want to make things right. Please, just lighten up on the mech?"

Arcee was silent for a moment before she spoke. "I'm going to have a little…chat with him beforehand though, just to get the point across of course."

Jack grimaced as he knew there was going to be nothing good about this; he just hoped it wasn't off-putting though. "Uh, sure."

"If you hurt him…" Arcee growled the next day as she leaned in close to Smokescreen with a threatening expression on her faceplate, and this was not what Jack had in mind for her to 'lighten up' on the mech.

Smokescreen looked cowed and his optics flickered over to Jack, who stared back as naively as possible to show that this was not what he wanted, or rather not what he wanted to be displayed so overtly. He'd just wanted Arcee to make a gruff comment on easing up on him, not up right threaten him.

This was the exact opposite of what was supposed to happen; he half expected Smokescreen to back out of their arrangement and continue avoiding him for it.

"Arcee, I think he gets it." Jack spoke up and the femme pulled back and cast another suspicious glance at Smokescreen before she walked off. Jack gazed up at the mech sheepishly and scratched the back of his head nervously. "Uh, that's not gonna put you off, right?"

Smokescreen blinked as he straightened up, pretending like nothing had happened. "Put me off what?"

Jack's shoulders sagged as he realized Smokescreen wouldn't have caught the meaning and cleared up the confusion. "What I mean is, er, I hope Arcee's…threat didn't make you wanna take back our plan to hang out."

Smokescreen peered down at Jack. "Were you the one who asked her to do that?"

Jack blushed at this. "I didn't want her to do that." He said quickly. "I just wanted us to hang out earlier and I thought it was because you were scared of her that you'd been staying away from me."

Smokescreen raised an optic ridge before his expression shifted to one of disbelief. "You wanted to hang out sooner?" There were probably other things to be said, but for now this seemed like an appropriate question considering previous events. He smirked slowly as he decided to tease the boy a little. "You just want me that badly, huh?"

Instead of his own verbal screw up, Jack wondered if Smokescreen knew just what he had said sounded like. Though Jack had to wonder if there was something wrong with how his mind immediately caught the underlining meaning to the words and had him blushing up a storm as he tried to sputter out a response. "A-as a friend of course." He stuttered.

Smokescreen looked at Jack strangely but shrugged it off a moment later. "Come on then Jack, we can play with those video game things Bumblebee and Raf are always on."

Jack let out a silent sigh of relief before sprinting to catch up with him as he and Arcee had found Smokescreen at the top of the mountain the silo was in. "Do you even know what a video game is?"

Smokescreen glanced down at him. "Of course I do, it's like a less satisfying racing right?"

Jack rolled his eyes at the shorthanded way the mech summed up the racing games Raf and Bumblebee usually played with. "That's one of them anyway."

"Then maybe you could show me more after we get done this racing game?" Smokescreen questioned.

Jack felt his lips quirk up into a smirk. "If you feel up to it after I beat you."

The mech grinned down at him, looking less uncertain that he had before. "I have a race car as my alt-mode; you think you can compete with that?"

Jack's smirk widened into a grin as he held Smokescreen's gaze. "Give me a chance and I'll show you."

"I thought I was already giving you a chance?" Smokescreen asked idly and Jack blushed but he didn't look away.

"Yes, yes you are." He said seriously and only then did he look away.

"Though should I be amused or disturbed by your persistence to hang out?" Smokescreen questioned and with the pointed look Jack received there was another meaning to those words and he didn't take them at face value.

"I know that this may feel…creepy in some way, but I really do want to make it up to you and be your friend." Jack said sincerely. "If you couldn't tell, I don't have many friends."

"Well when we pranked that redhead I clearly thought he was your friend." Smokescreen said sarcastically. "But, yeah, I did have fun with you too. Though when this 'grounding' is over I'll still show you what real racing is."

Jack shuddered as he thought back to the street racing he'd stupidly participated in. "Thanks, but no thanks; I like my racing to be strictly on the console."

Smokescreen shrugged. "Your loss then."