A quick warning: Nico spends most of this fic thinking less of himself because he can't read in English and hiding it because he's embarrassed by it and thinks his friends will judge him. Please take care of yourself if you think this might be triggering.
Nico manages to play it off for quite a while. Most demigods are dyslexic, after all, and since ancient languages are easier for them to read, most of the texts at Camp Half-Blood are in Ancient Greek, and most of the texts at Camp Jupiter are in Latin. Nico technically doesn't read Latin, but he can read Italian, which is close enough that he normally can get the gist of what the Latin texts are saying. And Ancient Greek, of course, his heritage lets him inherently understand. He can read well enough at both camps to get by.
When he's outside of the camps, though, that's when the problem arises. And the problem is that Nico can't read or write in English.
It's not like he was ever taught, after all. The majority of his schooling was done in Italy in the 1930s, and during the bit of time he spent at Westover Hall, he would either ask classmates for help, or he'd do his best to muddle through by sounding words out aloud and writing English words with an Italian spelling. Perhaps, if he'd stayed longer, his teachers would have realized his problem and given him more help, but he'd left before they could, and he hadn't had any formal schooling since then. No one else had ever noticed, and he'd certainly never told anyone. He's managed to get along just fine without reading or writing English.
Except part of the reason Nico has managed that is because he's never stayed with other people for any longer than he had to, and now that he's staying at Camp Half-Blood for the foreseeable future, that's no longer the case.
It's still not much of a problem within the camp. Most everything is available in Ancient Greek as well as English, and it even turns out that Nico isn't the only camper to speak Italian. Apparently, all children of Apollo inherently know the language in the same way that children of Aphrodite know French, so as Nico slowly becomes closer to Will Solace and the rest of his cabin, he ends up with some opportunities to speak Italian again. When a daughter of Tyche named Chiara Benvenuti shows up, Nico even has someone else who's from Italy to speak to. He wonders for a while if she has the same problem he does, then he sees her reading from one of the few English books in the camp and figures she probably doesn't. They probably teach English in schools in Italy now, he supposes. It seems to be a more international language than it used to be.
They didn't teach English in schools in Italy back in the 1930s, though, so that doesn't solve Nico's problem in the least.
Still, Nico's able to play it off for a while. When Annabeth gives him a book in English she thinks he might like, he shoves it into a corner of his cabin and never brings it up again. When he and Will go out to a restaurant on a date, he pretends to look over the menu until the waiter comes over, at which point Nico says he wants the same thing that Will's having. When Percy asks him to look over an essay he's written, Nico successfully convinces him to pass it off to someone else instead. For a while, he thinks he might manage to get away with it.
Then, he gets dragged to the Jackson-Blofis apartment for dinner, and it all falls apart.
He's in the kitchen, having been guilted into helping Paul with dinner while Sally, Percy, and Annabeth play with baby Estelle. Sally assured him he didn't have to help if he didn't want to, but Nico said it was fine. He doesn't mind helping in the kitchen. It brings back faint memories of doing so with his mother and Bianca when he was small, and Paul seems like a nice guy, if mostly a stranger to Nico. Cooking sounds fine.
And it is, until Paul looks down at the vegetables he's sautéing and says, "Shoot, I can't remember whether I put the broth in first or the spices. Nico, can you check the recipe?"
Nico freezes. "Uh-"
"It's in the cookbook over there," Paul says, gesturing vaguely with one hand. "The curried chickpea soup."
Slowly, Nico goes over to the cookbook. It's open, but there's a recipe on each page. After slowly trying to read each title, Nico is fairly certain they're both soups, but he doesn't know which one was the one they're making.
"Nico?" Paul asks. "What does the recipe say?"
For a moment, Nico considers guessing. He's got a fifty-fifty shot, after all. If he prays hard enough to Tyche, maybe she'll consider taking pity on one of her daughter's friends. And the soup will probably turn out fine, right? It won't be that big a deal.
But Paul is trusting Nico right now, and Nico's not going to betray that trust.
"I don't know," Nico admits in a small voice.
"Dyslexia acting up?" Paul asks sympathetically. "Percy's got a couple of tricks to help with that, if you want-"
"It's not that," Nico interrupts. Pretending it was just dyslexia would be a believable excuse, but it would be a lie, and Nico already decided he wasn't going to lie. "I, um. I can't read."
Paul blinks. "You can't read?"
"In English, I mean," Nico adds quickly. "I can read in Ancient Greek, and Italian, and even sort of in Latin. Just not in English."
"You can read Italian?"
"I am Italian," Nico says, wondering how much Percy told his stepfather about Nico's past. He decides not to mention the whole growing up in the thirties thing. "I grew up in Venice."
"I had no idea," Paul says. "You don't have an accent at all."
"Yeah, I know," Nico replies. He is aware that he doesn't have an accent, but he's not really aware why. Then again, he's not entirely sure how he knows how to speak English at all. He thinks the knowledge may have been dropped in his head along with his new memories when Alecto came to get him from the Lotus Hotel and Casino. It would have been helpful if that knowledge had extended to reading and writing, but apparently there are limits to even what weird memory-magic could do.
The vegetables start to burn onto the bottom of the pan, and Paul quickly gives them a stir. "Can you bring the cookbook over here, then?" he asks, and Nico quickly does. Paul scans the page, then nods to himself. "Spices first. Okay, can you get me a teaspoon? They're in the same drawer as the rest of the cutlery."
Nico does as he's asked, and he and Paul add everything into the soup and leave it to simmer. After putting the top on, Paul turns to face Nico, his brow furrowed just slightly.
"I teach English, did you know?" he remarks.
"Percy said," Nico replies, scuffing his shoe against the tile floor. "You were Rachel's teacher too, right?"
"I was," Paul agrees. "I teach at Goode High School. I used to teach at an elementary school before that."
"Okay."
Paul hesitates a moment, then sighs. "I don't want to push, and if you want me to drop it, I can, but… Would you like me to teach you how to read and write in English?"
Nico freezes once again. "What?"
"I'll admit, I'm probably a little rusty on the best techniques," Paul says with a slight laugh. "And I'll have to research if there's a specific technique for teaching kids with dyslexia to read. I could ask Sally how she taught Percy, maybe. But we can figure it out together, if you want to."
Nico stares, unable to help it. The words Paul said all made sense on their own, but together, Nico can't quite understand. He hardly knows Paul. Why would a stranger offer to help him like this?
"You don't have to," Paul adds. "It's up to you."
"Why?" Nico asks.
Paul frowns. "Why what?"
"Why are you offering?" Nico asks. "Why would you want to help?"
What do you expect in return?
Nico's trying to get better about trusting people, he really is. He'd like to believe that Percy's stepfather is someone who would help him like this without ulterior motives. Percy, he's fairly certain, would believe that easily, and Nico wishes he could. He's not quite there yet, though.
"I'm a teacher," Paul says with a little shrug. "I like teaching. I like helping people. If you don't want me to teach you, that's okay. If you don't want to learn, that's okay. It's your choice, Nico. But if you ever need help, I'm here."
"Can I think about it?" Nico asks, hoping he doesn't sound as nervous to Paul's ears as he does to his own.
"Of course you can," Paul agrees immediately. "There's no expiration date on the offer." He looks over Nico's shoulder, out the kitchen door, and asks, "Does anyone else know?"
"No. No one knows."
"Do you want me to keep it that way?" Paul asks. "I can keep it a secret if you want."
What do you want in return? Nico almost asks, but before, Paul said there were no strings attached. Nico doubts there are any now, and if there are, Paul doesn't seem likely to tell him. Nico will just have to trust him, and trust that he'll be able to figure something out later if things go wrong.
"I don't want anyone to know," he mumbles.
"Okay," Paul agrees easily. "But Nico, it's nothing to be ashamed of. No one would think any less of you if they knew, I'm sure of it."
Consciously, Nico knows that. He knows that his fellow demigods are unlikely to judge, especially considering his past. He was never taught how to read or write in English, after all. No one would expect him to be able to if they knew the full story.
Except no one does know the full story, so people expect things of him without a second thought.
"I don't want anyone to know," he repeats.
"Then I won't tell anyone," Paul says. "Can you go tell everyone dinner will be ready soon?"
Nico nods, and he goes back to the living room to pass the message on. Percy quickly - and somewhat forcibly - offers him baby Estelle, claiming that he deserves a turn, and Nico does his best to keep her from getting too upset. She's a pretty cute baby, he has to admit, and she's not too loud. He appreciates that. He's sure her parents do too.
Sally takes Estelle after a few minutes, and everyone washes their hands and heads into the dining room for dinner. The soup is delicious, and Paul makes sure everyone directs their thanks to Nico as well as him, even though Nico barely did anything. Dinner goes smoothly, and Nico spends most of it thinking.
Paul seems like a nice guy. He seems like a good guy, which is even more important. He seems like he legitimately wants to help Nico out, and he doesn't seem like he would ask anything to awful in recompense. And to be honest, Nico would like to be able to read and write in English, if someone could teach him. It would be useful to know, and it would keep him from potentially embarrassing himself if anyone finds out he can't.
He hears Paul's voice say, it's nothing to be ashamed of, and he wishes he could agree and mean it.
If Paul can help him, then it'll solve the problem. He also mentioned something about asking Sally for help, and while Nico would prefer no one else to know about the gaps in his education, if Sally finds out, he thinks that would be okay. Sally Jackson is one of the kindest people he's ever met, and he knows he could trust her with his life.
And honestly, maybe telling people wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. He told Paul, and that went alright. Maybe he can tell other people too. Maybe they'll understand, and maybe he won't need to be embarrassed at all.
But for now, Nico just goes up to Paul after dinner and says quietly, "If you could teach me, I'd like to learn."
Paul smiles at him, a paternal sort of smile that almost reminds Nico of his own father, on the infrequent occasions when Hades decides to be gentle. "Of course, Nico."
Nico has been trying to move forward in life. He's been trying to stop holding himself back.
This, he thinks, is as good a place to start as any.