Written to Eyes as Candles - Passion Pit, crosspost from AO3.
Hygge: A complete absence of anything annoying or emotionally overwhelming; taking pleasure from the presence of gentle, soothing things.
"Your daddy is really stupid, do you know that?" Loki asks Modi one afternoon, bouncing the baby up and down his lap. Modi smiles up at him toothlessly, blows a little spit bubble with tiny lips.
Loki had overheard Thor talking to Sif just a few moments earlier as they walked through the halls of the castle after a particularly intense training session.
"You must be so glad the baby looks like you," Sif had commented.
"Aye," Thor commented offhandedly, twirling Mjolnir around carelessly and not catching sight of Loki in the shadows by the nursery door, Jörmungandr coiled around his shoulders. "Quite glad indeed."
Loki hadn't stayed to hear any more and slipped back through the crack in the nursery door, closing it quietly behind him. As such, he does not hear what follows, when Thor continues with, "It would not matter what he looked like, I would love him all the same. He is mine and Loki's. He could not possibly be less than wonderful."
"You don't mind it, do you?" Loki asks Modi, who looks up at him with huge blue eyes. "You'd still be happy even if you had my skin, wouldn't you, sweetling?" Loki allows his glamour to fade a touch, letting the deep blue show through, and Modi stares curiously at him before stuffing a tiny fist into his mouth and smiling gummily at Loki through a mouth full of fingers. Loki cannot help but smile back and lean forward to press a kiss to Modi's wispy curls of blonde hair.
When he pulls away, Modi pulls his fingers out of his mouth, wipes them unceremoniously on Loki's robe and then squeezes his eyes shut, furrowing his little brow in concentration. Loki watches in utter amazement as blue streaks of colour shoot across his son's skin, spreading across his face, his chubby arms. The blue is not quite as pronounced as Loki's, more of a subtle undertone, just the shadings of it, dusting his rosy cheeks a soft violet and colouring the whites of his eyes with a gentle red.
Loki is so entranced by this, catching Modi's baby blue fingers in his own navy ones, that he does not hear the nursery door opening, does not hear nor feel Thor's deep footsteps across the nursery carpet.
"Loki, love," Thor's voice calls out softly, and Loki jumps in surprise, turning. Upon seeing Thor, Loki pulls Modi closer to himself, trying in vain to hide the baby's skin.
Thor tilts his head, looks down at the two of them. Modi, catching a glimpse of Thor, smiles up at him in delight and holds out his hands, opening and closing like starfish, wanting Thor to hold him.
Thor takes him from Loki's slack arms, examines the gentle red etchings dusting across Modi's plump cheeks, and, much to Loki's vast surprise, returns Modi's smile with a broad grin of his own.
"Oh, Modi, look at you," Thor says, and Modi squeals in laughter as Thor tickles him with his beard. "You look like your mama, how beautiful! I am so glad."
Loki watches Modi pat bluish fingers against Thor's face, and breathes out a soft sigh of relief, a smile blossoming across his amethyst lips.