this was written after the big Mona-Y'Gythgba issue on Tumblr.

this takes place the morning after The Moons of Thalos 3.

Fugitoid's ship has these replicator things on them that zap you a plate full of hot food out of space-light. Leo practically wet his shell over them, the first time Honeycutt had showed off just what he could make (Now, rumour has it that you boys quite like pizza – so go on! Ask! and oh boy did they receive), but all Raph really cares about, in his post-morning-training exhaustion, is the fact that it will give him a plate full of bacon and eggs, with none of Mikey's weirdness attached.

Donnie's next in; he shuffles, rotating his left arm, and asks the replicator for black coffee. "And?" Raph prompts around a mouthful of bacon.

"…and toast," Donnie says grudgingly, as though the concept of eating breakfast is an actual chore.

"With?"

Donnie sighs. "With butter. And an egg. Soft-boiled."

"That's better."

The replicator makes a weird flash-zap noise, and Donnie pulls up a chair opposite Raph, already starting to neatly cut his toast into soldiers.

A bright, cheerful sticker is on the top-left scute of his plastron:

HELLO! MY NAME IS
DEE
NICE TO MEET YOU

Raph squints at it.

While he's squinting, HELLO MY NAME IS LEO NICE TO MEET YOU walks into the room, asks the replicator for a bowl of cereal, and he sits next to Donnie, already digging into the closest thing the replicator can make to Cinnamon Toast Crunch. His sticker is on the top-right, in big blocky handwriting. Raph glances, from Leo's to Donnie's, and realises that they're colour-coded. Donnie's is purple, Leo's is the same, boring, responsible shade of blue he always goes for, in everything. "Am I missing something?" Raph asks, jabbing accusingly at Leo's plastron with an egg-stained fork. "What, did I miss a freshman party?"

They look at each-other, and Donnie shakes his head, stacking his pieces of toast into two neat little piles before sawing off the top of his egg with a spoon. "No," he says, in that fake-innocent tone of voice he's got. "Just, y'know." He dunks a piece of toast into the yolk. "Trying to be good brothers."

"What does that even mean?" Raph asks. Donnie shoves food into his mouth. "Did Mikey hit his head?"

"Hey, you didn't even need the sticker!" says HELLO! MY NAME IS M*I*K*E*Y! NICE TO MEET YOU, as he bombs into the room. He doesn't even need to ask, the replicator just shits out a cream-and-syrup-laden pancake monstrosity, and Mikey plops himself down next to Raph. His sticker is orange. "Nice going, Raph! One step at a time, you'll get there! Next, we're gonna start you on," he leans in close, making a wave with his hand as he finishes the sentence with, "triple-syllabubs."

"Syllables," Donnie corrects. "It's a learning curve, but practise makes perfect!"

"What practise? What perfect!?"

"Good morning, gentlemen!" Fugitoid's eyes blink into a sunny, cheerful expression, and he's followed into the room by HELLO MY NAME IS April NICE TO MEET YOU, her bright yellow sticker almost indistinguishable against her space-suit, but the black sharpie writing is clear enough – she even drew a skull over the i of her name. "Good training session?"

Donnie and Leo both have their mouths full, but they offer Honeycutt a thumbs-up each.

"Marvellous!" the robot – cyborg – android – whatever – says, cheerfully. "Tea, anyone?"

Leo raises his hand at the same time April says "I will!" and the Fugitoid starts to busy himself with a kettle, humming quietly to himself. In one of the shiny metal walls of the mess hall, Raph can see that he, too, is wearing a sticker.

"Okay, out with it already – what's with the name-tags?"

"Like Donnie told you, Raph," says Leo. "We're just trying to be good, helpful people!"

"Helpful my butt. Helpful to who?"

Just as quickly, Donnie's smile vanishes, and the look on his face is flatter than the last pancake on Mikey's plate. "To the neanderthal sitting at the table who can't handle more than three syllables at a time? Mona Lisa? Seriously?"

"Okay her real name is impossible," Raph shoots back, immediately, defensively.

"Y'Gythgba?" Donnie asks, glancing to Leo who shrugs.

"Yeah I thought it was pretty easy too, once she laid it out for us. Y'Gythgba."

Then Mikey joins in, stretching the whole word out. "Eeeee-githhhhhhg-baaaaaaaah," he says, before dropping into the main riff of Barbara-Ann.

Raph punches him, a solid clonk on the bicep of his left arm, and over the yelping, carries on: "You were talking to her?" he asks, and can't stop the run of jealousy in his chest – as well as insecurity. What did she say about him? Did she talk about him at all? Did she say he was cool, did she talk about his nose?

(Did she talk about his nose?)

"Yeah, that's usually what you do when you make conversation with someone. Hello, how are you, thanks for not killing us, oh hey what's your name…" Leo counts them off on his fingers. "It's called being polite."

Donnie shrugs. "We had to do something while you were out cold all that time. Did you know that the Salamandrians–"

"Can you not nerd up my girlfriend?"

Mikey instantly does a wolf-whistle, except it does it with his whole mouth, a woo-woOOOOOooooo that makes Raph's shell crawl with not-quite-embarrasment, but a lot of SHUT UP MIKEY. But Mikey never shuts up, especially not when you really, really want him to, and over the sound of Mikey making constant kissy noises – and that wasn't even the way Mona kissed him, at all – Raph asks, "so– wait, was she mad that I called her Mona Lisa?"

"I think she was more annoyed when Casey asked her exactly how prehensile her tail was," Leo says, then drains the milk from his cereal.

April, still across the room and out of the line of fire, chokes on her tea.

Raph stares. "What."

"Oh, dude, that reminds me!" Mikey chimes in, still rubbing his arm. "So like, if you and her are giiiiiiiirlfriends now because she punched you, does that mean that you and Casey are gonna hook up?"

"What!?"

"Because, like, you do you, brah, but between you and me and like, this whole table, you can do waaaaay better than that. What about Fishface? He used to beat you up all the time! Donnie could give him the retromutagen when we get back, I bet he'd totally be down!"

"ARE YOU INSANE– don't answer that – WHY WOULD I– I'm not Leo, I'm not constantly logging in to PlentyOfNinjas to see who wants to slit my throat toda–"

"Do you really want to keep talking, Raph?" Leo asks, his voice icy-cold.

"Yeah, actually, I do!"

"Consider stopping."

"Consider getting off my ass, Leo, how about that?"

"You know," says Mikey, but they never know what Mikey was about to say, because Donnie covers his mouth, jerks his head to the open door, and finally, the last member of the group waltzes through.

"Goooooood morning!" says HELLO MY NAME IS CAPTaiN BaDa$$, still shirtless after his shower, his sticker stamped onto the stupid bandana he wears around his forehead, and Raph just gives up, yells incoherently, kicks his chair, and stomps out.

things i regret: not this.