a/n: Thank you for all the wonderful reviews, the favourites and the follows! I could not have gotten this far without your marvellous support.

Necessary Sins – Chapter 32

After his talk with Juliette, Nick would have liked to go straight to the warehouse to help prepare for the auction. Failing that, he'd have liked to meet Adalind and Diana and take over bodyguard duty from Monroe. What he actually did, was go visit Renard. That was probably last on the list of things he wanted to do on a Saturday morning. He could only hope the fact that Renard was at work and therefore in a public place, would prevent the captain from getting violent.

Somehow, Nick just didn't see this conversation going well.

He knocked on the door of Renard's office and pushed it open when he was called in. 'What are you doing here?' Renard asked, looking up from a report he was reading. 'Don't tell me something's gone wrong with the auction already?'

Nick wanted to make a snarky comment about Renard's lack of faith but was it really a lack of faith when they were all expecting this plan to go horribly wrong? It wasn't just that they were relying on a fence – a man Nick and Hank both had a history with – to set the whole thing up but that Kenneth, Black Claw and HW all seemed to have stakes in its outcome.

Although, Nick would have preferred that to be the reason for his visit. They were all expecting it to go wrong somehow so dealing with the fallout was something he'd actually prepared for. Telling Renard that his daughter was back in town, aged more than she should be and now powerless was not.

Adalind had taken the news in stride, whether or not Diana had her powers made no difference to Adalind. Just another way she differed from her mother. Adalind wanted Diana safe and if that meant no longer possessing terrifying powers as a hexenbiest then that was fine by her. She loved her daughter no matter what, she knew what it was like to be turned away by her mother for no longer having powers, Adalind would never do that to Diana.

Renard was another question entirely. Like Catherine Schade, he had tossed Adalind aside when she'd returned from her confrontation with him powerless. He'd had no use for an ordinary woman, even one he'd supposedly had feelings for. Would he feel the same way about his daughter now that she wasn't a powerful pawn to be used against his father?

It didn't much matter what the King thought, Nick and Adalind had always planned to keep Diana as far away from the Royals as they could but that was made a little difficult where Renard was concerned. Nick had no doubt Adalind would keep Diana away from Renard if she thought she could get away with it. He had no doubt she would prefer to keep her daughter safely in the care of a family of powerful Grimms and wesen who would love her because she was Diana and not because she was crazy powerful.

They couldn't keep him from his daughter, though, and Nick didn't want to try, not unless it was a matter of Diana's safety and wellbeing.

'It's not about the auction,' Nick told him. 'It's about Diana.'

Renard put down the pen he'd been using to make notes and trained his entire focus on Nick. 'What about Diana?'

'She's back in Portland.' Straight to the point seemed to be the best way to handle this.

Renard's response told Nick all he needed to know about how this conversation was going to go. 'The King can't know she's here.'

There was no demand to see her, no urgent need to know that she was okay, simply a reminder (like Nick needed one) that Diana needed to be kept away from the King. Before he said anymore he studied Renard, looking for any sign that what he was thinking was wrong. Nick was looking for any sign that Renard wasn't about to treat his own daughter like he'd treated her mother. He'd never had an easy job of reading Renard, if he had, there probably would have been a lot less lying in those first years as a Grimm. There probably wouldn't have been as much betrayal, either.

Now, though, as much as he wanted to read Renard's intent in his stiff posture and narrowed eyes as he quickly went through numerous scenarios, all Nick saw was a man looking for power. He didn't see a parent eager to meet his child.

'She doesn't have her powers anymore.' Nick dropped the news without any lead up, he didn't want to soften this blow, he wanted as unguarded a reaction from his boss as possible.

Anger. That was the immediate reaction, a flicker of emotion in which Renard lost control and for a short moment he woged, showing the face of his zauberbiest to Nick's Grimm eyes. Nick waited him out; he stood patiently behind the visitor's chair waiting to see what Renard would say. The way his eyes flashed, his nostrils flared and his grotesque jaws gnashed was probably supposed to be threatening but Nick had never really been afraid of Renard and he lived with a much more terrifying hexenbiest. A pregnant, hormonal hexenbiest was a lot more terrifying than a part zauberbiest.

'It can be reversed.' Renard said it firmly, as though there were no question that was the case. 'Blood of the Grimm can be reversed.'

Given that reversing a mouthful of Grimm's blood was what had caused the problem in the first place, Nick didn't imagine that would have been a good course of action even if that had been the case. Nick wasn't even sure Blood of the Grimm would have worked on Diana even if his mother had tried it. Did that kind of thing get passed through the blood? Adalind was immune to that now, had she passed that immunity on to her daughter?

And what did that even mean for their son? Had there ever been a part-Grimm part-hexenbiest before? It wasn't something they'd really considered before. Their son's conception hadn't exactly been a well-thought and perfectly executed plan with all the what-ifs ticked off.

Which really wasn't the point. 'It can't be reversed,' Nick told him. 'It isn't as simple as that.'

'Of course it can be reversed,' Renard replied stiffly. 'Adalind did it.'

'Adalind regaining her powers is what caused this problem in the first place,' Nick said shortly. 'Diana wasn't physically able to handle all that power,' he explained. 'It was killing her.'

As clearly as possible, Nick explained what had happened and how his mother had been forced to smuggle Diana into Europe to find someone who could help them. The more of the story he told, the more Renard closed off his expression until Nick could read absolutely nothing from his face.

'There's a chance she'll get her powers back when she hits puberty but it's a slim one,' he finished.

Renard didn't react and Nick watched him, waiting for some kind of response that would tell him Renard wasn't going to do this wrong. He didn't get one. What he got was a dismissive, 'I'll need to deal with this.'

Nick gave him one last chance, offering a parting, 'Once the auction is over we can arrange a visitation schedule.'

Renard nodded but whether it was an acknowledgement of his words or their meaning Nick couldn't be sure. He left Renard's office annoyed with the captain, which, while not a new feeling, this time it had a hot edge of potential rage. Nick might have spent just one night with Diana but she was Adalind's daughter and that was enough for him to love her. The little time he'd spent with her said she was a good kid. She'd been through a lot in her short life – a lot of pain and misery – but she smiled and laughed and played like any other kid. Nick had no doubt he would come to love her for herself and not just Adalind.

For all intents and purposes Diana was his daughter, he was not going to let Renard hurt her the way he and Catherine had hurt Adalind. He just wasn't sure what he was going to do about it, just yet. He supposed that depended on Renard. If it was shock making him act like an idiot, Nick could accept that. Once it wore off, there was every chance Renard would want to know more about Diana. Maybe he might even ask the first question that had been on Adalind's lips.

Was Diana okay?

Judging by the photo Nick received in the elevator down to the parking garage, Diana was doing just fine. She and Adalind were sprawled across a twin bed pulling silly faces at the camera. There was a teasing glint in Adalind's eye that suggested she and Diana were having a wonderful time and the message that accompanied the photo was obviously meant to be from Diana because it read "My very own bed!" and was followed by a grinning emoji.

The photo served to double Nick's irritation with Renard. There was simply no way to be indifferent to his daughter, it had to be shock and the stress of dealing with the King and Kenneth.

At the warehouse, Nick pulled his car round back where he saw Rosalee and Hank were also parked, alongside a bike he didn't recognise and a grey Volkswagen that looked like it was older than Nick. He slipped in through the back door and found Josh and Rosalee talking with Frankie the fence and a tall, thin woman wearing a business suit and impressively high heels. She was examining one of the cups they hadn't deemed worthy of keeping and making notes on a legal pad. The grey Volkswagen belonged to Frankie, it was perfectly nondescript and looked nothing like the car a wealthy criminal would be driving. Either there was someone else in the warehouse or the bike belonged to the woman.

The woman didn't look up when Nick approached, intent on her work. She barely even glanced in his direction when Rosalee introduced them with a quick explanation that she was the daughter of the antiquities expert – he was sick and she'd been volunteered to fill in. Nick didn't much care, so long as someone was there to describe each piece and value it for those bidding. He didn't bother trying to talk to her, he (like her) would prefer she concentrated on her work. They'd hopefully get more money that way.

'Is Trubel back yet?' he asked, stepping away from Frankie and Donna to speak quietly with Rosalee and Josh.

'Not yet,' Josh answered. He looked run down, like he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. Nick thought it likely he hadn't, he and Bud having pulled the late night and early morning watch over the treasure.

'Where's my mom?'

'She and Wu are making some last-minute adjustments to security,' explained Rosalee. 'I didn't ask what that involved, we all thought the cameras were set up just fine.'

Nick had thought the cameras were enough as well, the treasure would be leaving with the buyers just hours after the close of the auction (and upon receipt of payment), it hadn't seemed necessary to go overboard. He supposed, his mother was used to be extra vigilant when it came to security, it likely wasn't a bad thing if she wanted to check over their plans. Maybe Wu would learn something, maybe they all would.

'How did your talk with Juliette go?' Rosalee wanted to know.

Nick shrugged. 'About as well as could be expected. She didn't throw anything at me, we didn't really argue. I think she understands now, that there was never any chance of us getting back together and that I really am happy with Adalind.'

'Good.' Rosalee smiled ruefully. 'What about Renard? How did that go?'

Nick pulled a face. 'He was reluctant to believe Diana's powers are gone and talked about getting them back.'

Rosalee frowned at that. 'Adalind said she may never get her powers back.'

Nick nodded. 'I'm worried he only wanted her when she was useful to him. I don't want Diana getting hurt like Adalind did after I stripped her of her powers.'

Rosalee shook her head. 'That won't happen,' she said with conviction. 'Even if Renard doesn't quite know how to deal, Diana has you and Adalind, she has your mother and Monroe and I, we don't care if she has her powers, as long as she's happy.'

Nick nodded, the reassurance nice to hear. He'd worry about Renard's true reaction once there'd been time for the news to sink in.

He left Josh and Rosalee to finish up whatever they'd been doing with Frankie the Fence and Donna (their temporary treasure expert) and went in search of Hank. He found his partner in the storage hold where they'd stashed the treasure, sitting on a fold out metal chair looking perfectly at ease in the dark and dingy box of a room. The solid walls and just one door had made it ideal for storing the treasure overnight but that didn't mean Nick wouldn't be glad to see it go. He had no use for it; the sooner they were rid of it the better off they'd all be.

'How'd your talk Juliette go?' Hank asked and Nick sighed, wondering if that was going to be the first thing on everyone's mind when they saw him. Had Hank been there when Rosalee called or had she told him? Had Adalind? It wasn't like she could just turn up to drop off his mother and collect Monroe without someone wondering where he was but he really didn't want to spend the rest of the day answering this question every time he saw one of his friends.

'Fine,' he answered. 'I went with accidental hate sex over body switching spell – you know, to keep things wesen free.'

'Good call,' Wu approved, breezing into the room with Nick's mom on his heels. The look on Hank's face was hilarious, the one on his mother's not so much.

'Hi, mom,' he greeted sheepishly, suddenly feeling sixteen and as though he'd gotten caught trying to sneak a girl out of his bedroom. It was a foreign feeling. The first time he'd ever had a girl stay the night his aunt hadn't been in any position to know about it, she'd been off dealing with wesen (he now realised) and he'd had the whole house to himself for the weekend. There were a lot of things a sixteen-year-old could do with an empty house for the weekend.

Of course, being sixteen he hadn't exactly known the best ways to take advantage.

His mother raised her eyebrows in the most mom-like expression he'd yet seen on her face. It didn't entirely negate the scary Grimm persona, if anything it made it all the more terrifying. Nick felt a little sorry for the wesen who tried to wrong her. And a little grateful he'd never been on the receiving end of that look when he was sixteen. Not that he was glad his mother hadn't been around, he'd have preferred to have her with that expression than not at all, he was just used to her not being there, it made it easier to joke about. It covered the bitterness and the sting of abandonment.

'Are we set for security?' he asked.

Wu nodded. 'Cameras are up, covering the two entrances to the warehouse, the front where the items will be displayed and we've got one just outside the door of this storage room.' Wu pointed over Nick's shoulders to the very obviously placed camera. 'We didn't exactly have time to get anything better but it works.'

His mother stayed with the treasure while Hank and Wu led Nick out to the main warehouse floor where chairs and a small stage had been set up. There were about fifty foldable chairs arranged in front of the stage in a soft half circle, all with a good view of the stage where a table and podium had been set up. The auction room was connected to the storage area where they were keeping the treasure by a short windowless corridor. It would be Trubel's job to bring each piece of treasure up for display and watch over it during the bidding. Assuming she was back in time. It ensured the item was protected and added that level of gravitas for anyone able to identify Trubel as a Grimm.

The plan was to put Rosalee and his mother in the audience to monitor those doing the bidding. Frankie had done a decent job pulling together buyers and arranging the rules for the auction. No phone-in bids, cell phones were to be held by auction security (Wu, out of uniform and set to fingerprint every phone handed to him for safekeeping) upon entry unless they were smart enough to leave them outside in their cars or, in the case of pretentious rich assholes (like the King – well Kenneth) with their driver or security.

The cameras snapped photos of everyone coming in and out, which they could run through facial recognition programmes afterward. If Bud and his network of eisbibers couldn't identify them first. That would save on time and explanations. If it weren't for the fact they were trying to capture a member of Black Claw, they probably wouldn't have bothered trying to identify all the buyers. Unfortunately, it was extremely unlikely the member of Black Claw would walk in looking smug and proclaiming for all the world that he was part of a powerful group of wesen banding together across the world to rise up against their human oppressors to take their rightful place in society.

It sounded like a stupid idea just thinking about it. Nick wondered what drunken genius had come up with the idea and which of his buddies were stupid enough to run with it until suddenly the idea had gotten out of control, picking up more and more stupid individuals until it was an enormous global problem that Nick and his friends were suddenly being forced to deal with.

As pathetic as it sounded, Nick had no doubt that was exactly how it started. A bunch of wesen getting together in a bar somewhere, slowly drinking themselves stupid and complaining about having to hide who they really were.

Yes, Nick suspected it really was as pathetic as he was making it out to be in his head. That hadn't stopped it from becoming a dangerous threat. Some of those drunken idiots were probably very powerful wesen or at least useful wesen with friends in high places. Friends in high places who were both powerful and had a lot of money to throw around.

Like the Royals but wesen. Which was what Nick suspected they were. Rich and powerful old wesen families who had broken away from the wesen council when the new generation started to ask why. Why should they be in the dark? Why should wesen have to hide when they were so much more powerful? Why weren't wesen in charge while kehrseite cowered in the shadows?

Just because he understood how Black Claw had come about, didn't mean it wasn't an incredibly stupid and short-sighted plan. Did the wesen of Black Claw think the Wesen Council and the Royals worked to cover up wesen crimes (because the Royals spent a surprising amount of time keeping a lid on such things – when they weren't worrying about being killed off) just for the hell of it? Did they think it was about being scared to stand up and take their "rightful place"? Had it occurred to any one of them that wesen stayed in the shadows for a reason?

Probably not.

Setting up for the auction was mindless work and with them all working together it was done in no time. They didn't bother cleaning up too much of the debris littering the warehouse. Having abandoned building supplies and random bits of paperwork floating around set the right kind of scene of an impromptu and clandestine auction skating under the local police's radar.

You, know, if you weren't aware it was actually being set up by three cops with the not-quite-blessing of a police captain.

The auction was set to start at 2PM. They'd talked about setting it later but after a lot of back and forth Freddie and Monroe had concluded that broad daylight set the kind of message they wanted to send. They weren't afraid of getting caught (they weren't technically doing anything illegal) and that they were a business just like any other. Just of the pop-up variety.

It helped that holding it during the day cut out the need for a generator and lighting, gave the security cameras the best chance of getting decent footage and didn't require them to pay for the chair hire for another day. There were practical sides to holding an auction most people probably didn't think about.

They were all in position by 1:30PM. Wu looking intimidating, dressed all in black and standing just outside the side door they'd designated as the entry point. It was a lot easier to monitor the comings and goings (as well as restrict entry) than if they'd used the large roller doors. Hank, also dressed in black stood guard in front of the storage room staring straight down the hallway with a stony expression. If he'd been carrying an M16 he might have looked like something out of a military film. The image was (strangely) made all the more intimidating by Trubel lounging on an empty barrel beside him, looking disinterested in everything.

She'd come back from HW's secret lair with the news Meisner was in Portland meeting with Chavez and that they'd heard rumours about the auction but so far hadn't been able to get a location. The rumours they'd heard hadn't mentioned any Grimm involvement and they didn't seem to suspect Trubel knew more than she was letting on. They had asked her about Josh, though, which was a first.

'They want to know if he healed from his injuries faster than normal and if he's showing any other signs of being a Grimm,' she'd told Nick when she swung by the room he was using to monitor the cameras. It had once been a little back office. They'd cleared out enough space to set up a screen for Nick to watch the auction and it was where the images captured by the security cameras were being recorded to a hard drive.

'Did you tell them anything?'

'I told them he was healing and that I hadn't seen anything Grimm-like about him.'

'How did they react to that?'

'Well it wasn't a lie,' Trubel pointed out. 'All the wesen he's met with since it happened have been ones he already knew, he hasn't had the need to go all Grimm.'

Nick wanted to ask what exactly her definition of "all Grimm" was but he understood what she was saying and they didn't really have the time to go into the mechanics of her evasive answers to HW. While he and Trubel had been out dealing with normal wesen problems where they regularly encountered wesen having emotional and unintentional reactions to the presence of a Grimm, Josh had been recuperating at Monroe and Rosalee's. There hadn't been any opportunity for him to set a wesen on edge and bring out an unintentional woge. Just because Adalind, Monroe and Rosalee had all been able to see the creepy black Grimm eyes Josh was now sporting was no reason to go ahead and say he was an ordinary Grimm like HW wanted.

Unless they had previous experience making Grimms? Trubel and Josh hadn't seen any evidence of that but Nick was well aware there were plenty of things about HW Trubel and Josh didn't know. Unfortunately, it was more a case of focusing on one problem at a time. Black Claw seemed the more active threat (the beating and torture of Josh by HW, aside) though the Royals and HW were tying in second place. HW was organised and well equipped but they were a relatively new player just like Black Claw. The Royals had centuries of practice dealing with this kind of thing. In some ways, that would have made them the bigger threat, it didn't matter that they currently had a common goal.

While they'd gotten in position around the warehouse, Rosalee had taken her car and his mother and would return later, making the impression of arriving like any of the other buyers. He imagined she'd drop his mother on the road somewhere along the way so she could arrive separately and as mysteriously as she always managed to drop in and out of his life.

Adalind called just as the first of the buyers was arriving. Nick watched them closely on the monitor, searching for any signs that might out them as Black Claw members while he answered his phone.

His wife sounded exhausted but happy when she said, 'We got everything we needed, possibly things we didn't.'

'I was expecting that,' Nick admitted, though he was smiling when he said it. Adalind sounded so happy just to have been able to spend the morning with Diana, even if it had been spent trying to lug an almost-three-year-old (sort of) around the mall.

'You and I are pretty good at getting by with the bare minimum – we've both had times when we've started over with very little – but I don't want that for Diana. She's already spent so much time with only what they could carry.'

Most children would have been too young to remember that early in their life. If Diana had been anyone else, he would have easily said she wouldn't remember that first year and a half of her life when she was constantly moving. However, she had recognised not only Adalind right off but he, Monroe and Rosalee as well. Whether or not that was because of her powers and was a skill that would wear off now that she didn't have them or one that would stick he didn't know, so he couldn't go making reassurances about Diana being too young to remember until they did know.

'My only question is whether or not we currently fit in the loft with all this stuff you've bought,' Nick jokingly queried.

'Oh,' Adalind replied brightly, 'check this out.'

She switched their call to video and panned the camera in her phone around to show him that there was now a floor and walls where there'd once been nothing but a drop and a ladder. There were signs that the space wasn't yet finished – the men renovating his home were good but they weren't that good – but the extension was already well on its way to being a liveable space.

'That was fast,' Nick observed, flicking his gaze back to the security feed on the monitor and back again to scrutinise the new area Adalind already had plans on how to furnish.

'It needed to be fast,' she pointed out. 'How's the auction going?'

He turned the view on his camera around and held it so she could see his thrilling view of the auction via the monitor. 'It's all action,' he joked and made to switch the camera back when Adalind stopped him.

'Nick, wait, that's Meisner.'

'What?'

'The man with the scruffy beard who just gave his phone to Wu, that's Meisner.'

Nick leant forward to get a better look at the man on screen. Somehow, he was exactly what he'd been expecting, having heard so much about the man who helped Adalind escape Austria and put her in his mother's care. Even from the footage he looked strong and capable, the kind of man the Resistance would have loved to use against the Royals. The fact that Meisner had helped Adalind inclined Nick to overlook the fact the man had previously worked for Renard.

But only just.

'Trubel said he was in town but she also said HW didn't have more than rumours about this auction.'

'Clearly that changed in the couple of hours since she last saw him,' Adalind remarked dryly. 'What are you going to do?'

There'd always been the possibility of someone from HW turning up at the auction, that hadn't been something to worry over. What was worth worrying over was the fact that pretty much any other member of HW could have walked in and blended with the crowd. Meisner was known to Black Claw and the Royals. Nick had no doubt Meisner could ignore Trubel's role in the auction until it was all over but would Kenneth ignore Meisner's presence or would he feel the need to antagonise him? Whether or not this became an issue for Black Claw might depend on how high up the food chain the man or woman they sent was. Nick figured the higher up the Black Claw chain of command, the more likely they were to have seen a dossier on HW.

The fact they were selling off Grimm treasure right around the time the body of a hexenbiest turned up in a room Black Claw was known to have been searching, suggested someone in the know. They were unlikely to risk sending someone low down on the chain of command to confirm whether the treasure was the same treasure Black Claw had been seeking when they killed Dobrini.

Their potentially volatile auction had just gone from potentially volatile to definitely explosive.

So, of course, that was when Nick spotted Henrietta on the monitor. On screen, she was showing Wu she had no phone on her and then smiled up at the camera to show she knew she was being recorded. Possibly, she even knew who was watching her as she did it. Nick still wasn't quite sure what Henrietta was capable of, he was just glad she seemed to have taken a liking to him because he loved Adalind.

The view of the auction hall showed Meisner had taken a seat amongst the other buyers, Nick watched to see if he would react to Henrietta when she took her own seat toward the front. He didn't. He did react when Kenneth walked in. Nick was still unsure how to deal with this new problem (short of letting it play out and hoping to get his money before it all went to hell) when another man entered the warehouse and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

He didn't need to be in the room to know this older looking gentleman was bad news. He'd never seen Henrietta react that way to anyway – not that he'd seen her react to many people, he just imagined she was powerful and confident enough that she would rarely stiffen and falter before plastering on a wide smile.

The newcomer greeted Henrietta with a kiss on both cheeks but declined the chair beside her, choosing to take a seat two rows behind her. Nick hadn't known Henrietta could be so stiff, and judging by the reaction Adalind had when he held his phone up for her to see, she hadn't either.

'He's a member of Black Claw,' Nick told Adalind, without needed further confirmation.

'Nick,' Adalind breathed and now she sounded truly worried, 'I think he is Black Claw.'