From Camp Half-Blood to Gotham (Nico x Batfam)

Can't See Who (58)

Nico would like to meet whoever thought school was a good idea, and then punch them.

"I feel like my dyslexia is worse than usual." He grumbled, setting down his computer on the glass table in front of him, only to continue glaring at the text on the screen.

"You can always take a break if you need to," Dick answered from somewhere in the depths of the library.

"But this assignment is already past due. I need to get it done before I can move on." Nico leaned back on his beanbag and closed his eyes. He really needed his stupid brain to work. It was bad enough that he had no idea what was going on in his lessons, but now he couldn't get caught up. "And this thing doesn't have that text-to-speech thing."

"Hold on, I'll be there in a sec to help." A few minutes later Dick emerged, carrying a thick book with an unmarked leather cover.

"What's that?" Nico asked, scooching over so Dick could get a look at his computer.

"It's my bachelor's dissertation in criminal justice," Dick answered, reaching over Nico's shoulder to tap on the mousepad a few times, pulling up a menu Nico had never seen before.

"You wrote that?" He asked, staring in awe at the very, very thick book. There had to be over five hundred pages. Dick looked down at him, smiling.

"Yeah, it took me a few months, but I couldn't be more proud of it." Nico was handed the large book, which was a lot heavier and wider than he thought it had been.

As Dick did something to the add-on, Nico thumbed through the pages until he found the middle, admiring the binding stitching. It was a really fancy book, the pages were thick and smelled really good, and the print, though blurry and totally nonsensical to Nico, seemed pretty.

"What was your main focus?" He asked, flipping through the rest of the pages to find what he thought was the index. Or maybe it wasn't the index, it had a lot of what looked like names.

"The Psychology of Criminals: Understanding Motives and Behaviors." Dick rattled off, pulling away from the computer to give Nico his full attention. "You seem to be really struggling there, are you sure you can't take a break?"

"My eyes feel off." Nico sighed, giving them a good rub in a pathetic attempt to get rid of the blur.

"That's not good." Dick frowned, sitting down on the beanbag next to him, nearly tipping him off. "Hold still and let me look."

Nico couldn't hold still at the moment, and his eyes were the least still out of all of him. Dick gave him a stern look, so he transitioned to twiddling his fingers and tapping his toes in a random beat. Dick tilted his chin from side to side, inspecting his eyeballs so thoroughly it made Nico feel like a lab rat.

"Okay, I've seen enough." Dick dropped his hand and frowned. "I don't know how we didn't see it before, but your pupils are an abnormal size. And you are exhibiting other signs that I've been noticing. Frequently squinting to see objects more clearly, even in good lighting conditions. Rubbing the eyes often, which might indicate discomfort or strain from trying to focus. Bringing reading materials or other objects unusually close to the face to see details."

Nico awkwardly shifted in his seat as Dick started mumbling to himself, pulling out his phone to start doing something. None of those things sounded good, especially when he was a demigod and needed to be on point all the time. And the blurry vision hadn't been that bad. Mostly just stuff in the distance and even then it wasn't that bad. It was only awful when he tried to read, and he rarely ever did that.

"I'm going to call Bruce and see if we can get you into an optometrist soon." Dick lifted his phone to his ear and Nico could faintly hear the sound of the call ringing.