Jack ignored the look Sierra's friend was giving him as sat down beside the redhead; he was trying to avoid too Miko as he didn't want her to interrupt this. "We need to talk."

Sierra stilled. "About?"

"My mom found out about the prank, so I'm grounded for the next three weeks." Jack replied.

"Bummer." Sierra said. "And here I thought for out next date we could have gone to the monster truck rally."

Jack raised a brow. "You're into that?" he asked surprised. "Tell me, you ever met Miko before?"

Sierra's smile was a bit strained. "You meant that girl you're always hanging out with? Yeah, I've seen her around."

"She's into that stuff, maybe you could ask her to go with you." Jack suggested. "You shouldn't have to cancel your plans because I got in trouble."

Sierra frowned in concern. "Two pranks in such a short time? You were never like this before?"

"My friend, the one who lent me his sports car, said I'm fun when I'm bad." Jack chuckled dryly. "I have a feeling he likes me better when I loosen up though."

"You're fine the way you are." Sierra admitted with a blush.

Jack smiled slightly, ignoring the way the girl's friend rolled her eyes. Though it made him think for a moment; Smokescreen never called him boring, just the tour they did, so what did he really think of him? He didn't want to keep doing things he knew were wrong just to keep the mech interested in him, but then what could he do?

A sudden jerk brought him out of his musings and he was pulled to his feet, coming face to face with Vince, the situation feeling familiar to the previous confrontation. "I'm already paying for your car damage, what else is there?"

"Vince, leave him alone!" Sierra said sternly.

Vince barely glanced at her as he reeled back his fist. "This." He said coldly and punched Jack in the face and the dark-haired boy jerked in his grip from the force. "Next time you do something, Darby, you're not getting off so easy." He hissed and let go of the teen before he marched away from him.

Jack clutched at his eye and felt hands helping him stand. "What…?"

"Come on, Jack, I'll help you to the nurses office." He heard Sierra say and didn't try to resist as they made their way out of the cafeteria. "Why didn't you fight back?"

"Because it wouldn't have helped things." Jack said honestly.

"And you thought pranking Vince in retaliation would have helped things too?" Sierra retorted.

Jack was about to retort, but realized he had nothing to say to that. "Can…can I get your word you won't repeat what I'm about to say to you?" he asked seriously.

The redhead looked surprised by the mood change, but nodded after a moment. "Sure, what is it?"

"I didn't pull that new prank, my friend did. He heard what Vince did to my shirt and wanted payback even though I didn't. He said he was sorry for getting me in trouble." Jack explained.

"Why are you taking the blame for something he did then?" Sierra asked in disbelief.

"He…uh, got in trouble once before with pranking and I didn't want it to happen again." Jack replied. "And I didn't want him to get into any more trouble."

"Jack…" Sierra trailed off uncertainly, "I'm sure you care about your friend, but is it worth it to get hurt because of him?"

"I want him to speak up on his own; I don't want to lose his friendship after gaining it." Jack replied and his tone held finality to it.

Sierra looked as if she wanted to say more on the subject but dropped it and they continued down the hall the nurse's office.

Jack grimaced as he stared into the mirror on the bathroom wall. His mother had given him an ice pack for like the nurse had done earlier, but now the bruise under his eye was really starting to show. He just hoped it cleared up soon. He'd evaded his mother's questions and told her that he had only walked into a door.

She hadn't believed him, and neither had Arcee when she saw the black eye, but he refused to say how it happened. He wasn't going to let this cycle continue. If he did anything else then Vince just might break a bone next time and then he really couldn't explain that.

After changing into his night clothes, Jack left the bathroom and made his way back to his room. He went to close the blinds on his window, but stared at the blue sports car at the sidewalk in front of his house. "What is he doing here?" he asked himself and sighed. He didn't know whether or not Arcee had relayed he wasn't allowed to see the other Autobots, but he might as well tell Smokescreen himself.

Jack left his room and pulled on his shoes. His mother had gone to bed just before he was going to, so he probably should shoo Smokescreen away before she either woke up or Arcee found out that the mech was here in the first place. The teen walked outside the closed the door gently behind him and made his way over to the mech. "What are you doing here?"

"You didn't show up and-what happened to you eye?" Smokescreen's voice shifted from seeming concerned to barely contained anger.

Jack reflexively touched underneath his eye to cover it and flinched at feeling the bruise. "It'll heal, there's no worries," he said and decided to get the topic back on track, "and you're not allowed to be here, mom's grounded me."

"Then why is Arcee still allowed to see you?" Smokescreen retorted.

"She's my guardian." Jack shot back. "You'll get in trouble if she catches you; now go back to the base."

"That jerk did that to you, didn't he?" Smokescreen questioned angrily. "I knew I should have done something better."

"You shouldn't have done anything at all, I wasn't worth it." Jack replied.

"Yes you are, because you're my friend." Smokescreen said heatedly. "You were never supposed to have gotten in trouble."

"We already went over this, because of the last prank everyone though I did this one; if you do something else to Vince then it'll only get worse." Jack pointed out. "Stay away from Vince." He warned and when the mech didn't reply, he put his hands onto the hood and leaned over to make his point, "please don't make this any worse."

"Be quicker then, Jack; he's not getting away with this." Smokescreen replied and Jack's eyes widened and he thought fast and hurried into the passenger seat. "What are you doing?"

The teen knew it was petty, but he had a feeling the mech wouldn't care much if he threatened to tell Arcee about this. Even if was still scared of her. "If you do this, then we both get in trouble."

"What? No, get out!" Smokescreen exclaimed.

"Or…" Jack felt himself tense up as he thought about what Sierra said. "If you do this, we can't be friends anymore."

Smokescreen stilled. "You can't do that, we're barely friends now!"

Jack tried to not to show how much that statement hurt, but he had to put his foot down on this matter. "Please, don't do this."

"But I'm doing this for you." Smokescreen retorted sincerely.

Jack's eyes dimmed. "If you really want to do something for me, then go straight back to the base and forget you came here." He said and tentatively placed his hand onto the dashboard. "And if you're really my friend, then you should know by now that I don't want this."

Smokescreen didn't reply for such a long period of time that Jack was starting to get worried before the mech spoke. "Alright, Jack, for you…I won't do anything else to that jerk."

Jack smiled, in both relief and to humour him as he patted the dashboard. "That jerk's name is Vince."

Smokescreen let out a snort. "To me, he's going to be 'jerk.'"