I'm going to inadvertently make my coworker look bad
You gotta be joking, why do you have to make them look bad?
They started a whole thing with me.
Coworkers can be annoying but it is not good to do things that might hurt his employment. They might really need the job and it would not be nice to hurt his chances to be employed.
Why are you being a buzzkill it's 2018.
All I'm saying is that no one deserves to have their job jeopardized, even yours. What if you get in trouble too and lose your job? I think it's better to just not involved yourself with your coworker.