Paracosm: A detailed, prolonged imaginary world created by a child that includes human, animal, or alien creations.
"And how are you, my dear sweet little godling?" Steve asks jovially as Modi runs directly into his knee on his beeline towards the coffee table, where Pepper has laid out an assembly of cookies and crackers and juice boxes. Steve winces; leave it to Thor to produce offspring with extraordinarily hard heads, was Modi's skeleton made of concrete? It definitely felt like it. Steve refuses to believe that his 90-year-old kneecaps have anything to do with it.
"Who dat?" Modi asks, drawing up short as he sees Bucky on the couch. "Steep," he shouts up at Steve, as though it were possible Steve had not heard his bellowing from that great height, "who dat?" he insists, tugging on Steve's jeans.
"That is Bucky," Steve explains, trying to extricate Modi's nails from the thick denim, wondering if Thor or Loki had a set of child-friendly nail clippers handy. Bucky raises a hand in welcome. "He is my boyfriend. Sort of like your mama and Thor, but there's some different, ah, rules that apply to gods that allowed you to be brought about."
"Becky," Modi proclaims as he deems him safe to approach, and begins to stuff cookies into his mouth. "Becky is Steep's boyfwiend."
"It's Bucky," Bucky says, frowning as he looks at the small blonde child.
"Becky."
"Bucky."
"Becky!"
The shout Modi lets out has enough volume to fell a bull elephant, and Bucky holds his hands up in surrender.
Later that evening, as Modi is scribbling with fat crayons on the coffee table (Pepper had provided him with a large pad of paper, but so far, the paper was the only thing on the table NOT drawn on; even Bucky's metal arm had not been immune to Modi's fat wax scrawls of pink and purple, and Thor was sporting a rather level, bristly, teal handlebar mustache), Loki sits down next to his son and asks him what he is drawing. Loki dodges Modi's flailing arms artfully, firmly telling the child that Mama does not need lipstick at the present moment, and certainly not in that colour of yellow.
"Who is this?" Loki asks, pointing at a dark figure standing next to who he assumes is Steve. The bright red and overall patriotic appearance of the man suggested it was so.
"Dat's Becky," Modi says, arching an eyebrow at Loki as if he should have known the question all along.
"Who's Becky?" Loki asks, genuinely curious.
"Becky wears Steep's boyfwiend's skin at night," Modi says, pointing a fat green crayon at Bucky accusingly. "And she eats dwagon tails and pickles. At the same time!" This, in response to Bucky's being coerced into eating jellyfish and jalapeno rounds from the local Chinese takeout restaurant as part of his assimilation into modern American culture. The first time Steve had tried it, Tony had tricked him into believing it was linguine; afterwards, he had gone through enough milk to accompany the world's largest cookie.
Loki is, understandably, concerned about the first comment. And what was so bad about eating dragon tails and pickles at the same time? he wonders to himself. Absolutely nothing.
"What do you mean, she wears Steve's boyfriend's skin?" Loki asks cautiously. The dark figure is beginning to look positively demonic.
"She eat his awm fiwst," Modi proclaims grandly, pointing towards Bucky's metal arm. "And she has a pet whino that almost ate Gwem," he points a blue crayon towards Gwen, who smiles back at him and digs an elbow into Peter's ribs. "It was spawkly and big and mad like Mama when I hid his favouwite coat."
Modi claps his hands over his mouth at his inadvertent admission, and Loki frowns at his son before scooping him up into his arms.
"I do believe it is your bedtime, young man," he says, and Modi frowns as he is carried away, squirming over Loki's shoulder and finally flopping over, half on Loki's back, as he pouts in defeat.