TITLE: Contingency Theory, part 1
SERIES: Fate Lines
PAIRING: Nick/Renard
SPOILERS: here and there for S2 episodes, but very much out of S2 context
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: NC-17 later on
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belongs to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money :)
FEEDBACK: Loved
SUMMARY: Wesen are out for his blood. Well, more than usual. Nick has no idea what makes him such an attractive target, aside from being the local Grimm. But why now and why so suddenly? Soon Nick not only has assassins on his heels, but also a much, much bigger problem...

The woman stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, a cell phone against her ear, her beautiful face distorted in annoyance. Around her, the office room was kept in darkness. The curtains were drawn closed and the lights kept dim. To her conversation partner at the other end of the line, she was nothing but a voice. If he had been able to see what was behind the curtains, he might have guessed she was calling from the Old World continent. He might even have seen a landmark or two, lit up in the night to enhance the skyline of Vienna. He might also have known nothing of the sort and simply ignored the beautiful sight.

"Well?" she asked, her voice cold and impatient.

He couldn't see her honeyblond hair. He couldn't see her sharp eyes, the pale skin, the expensive jewellery. He couldn't take in the black dress that ended just above her knees. A simple cut, but expensive, designer-made, and showing off her slender figure just right. He didn't see a classic beauty of a woman, aware of her looks and using her body to get what she wanted. And she always got it.

"It will cost you," the man on the other end of the line finally said.

"You can rest assured, your payment will be more than enough."

"I hope so. I'd hate to get on his radar for that. You hear all kinds of things about the Grimm and he's good."

"Rumors," she said disdainfully, her smooth, pale forehead wrinkling a little.

"Ah, but rumors always hold a kernel of truth. I know the target from more than just rumors. To take him down, I'll need the best. They'll want more money the moment they know the risk factor."

"Send me your bill," was the answer. "All I want is results. I want him out of my way!"

With that the call ended. She put the cell into her small purse and left the room, rejoining the party.

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It was a cloudy day with a few sunny spells here or there. The weather didn't stop the flow of tourists and city natives from going about their business. One Kodak moment chased the next as children raced across the pedestrian streets, stopped at vendors and Moms and Dads bought ice cream, sweets and hot dogs for their off spring.

August had been an exceptionally uneventful month. A mysterious homicide case had turned out to be an angry colleague of the victim wanting the deceased's job. An apparently kidnapped heir to a small fortune turned out to be a teenage runaway who wanted nothing to do with her parents. Puberty strikes back. That she had left blood in her bed and made everyone believe she might be injured or worse hadn't made the case any more extraordinary.

September didn't really get any more hair-raising.

So the last eight weeks had been the most calm and relaxing ones in Nick Burkhardt's life. Well, not that he didn't get caseloads that were gruesome or weird or both or just plain sick. It wasn't that he and his partner Hank Griffin weren't investigating murderers, accidental homicides, hit-and-runs, a drunk driver who had killed a young boy on his way to school – and who had been driving his own kid to school that very day – or rage kills.

No, it was the normal police work, with pounding the pavement and interviewing suspects and getting frustrated by so many stonewalls and dead ends.

And there were a few that had wesen as the center of their investigation, too, but it was so much easier now to deal with matters that his partner knew. Nick ran into old and new wesen, learned some more about the Grimm world, and he helped some of them along the way.

But all that aside, it was truly better because Hank knew. He was now part of it, Nick could bring him in, he understood that some things couldn't be written down in an official report and had to remain off the records, and Nick no longer had to come up with impossible scenarios or half-baked explanations.

Because Hank knew.

They talked a lot about past cases. Hank brought them up, Nick added to the 'normalcy' if it had been a wesen case, and he saw the light go on whenever Hank finally had an explanation for their high solving rate. Not that he argued against it. He and Nick were a damn good team, even without the added Grimm part, but now he truly understood.

Nick patiently explained wesen to him. He had introduced Monroe and while the blutbad was wary and maybe even a tad nervous, the two men were no longer circling around each other. When Hank had invited Monroe to a beer, the ice had truly been broken. And Monroe had carefully detailed blutbaden to Hank, trying not to scare him too much.

Hank took it well, though not with enthusiasm or wide-eyed innocence. He accepted it as part of his work now. It also didn't mean he jumped into Grimm assistance with both feet. If left to him, Hank would have gladly never dealt with a wesen case ever again, but that was completely out of the question. So he went with the flow, he watched his partner, and he learned fine nuances in his behavior when Nick recognized a wesen as such.

Leaning against their car, paper coffee cups in hand, Hank glanced at him.

"Is it always like this?"

Nick chuckled. "Like what?"

Hank shrugged. "Okay, it is. I just need to get used to it. Still. Does it ever stop freaking you out?"

"It's like police work, Hank. If it stops making you feel anything you should give it up." Nick sipped his coffee. "I think Aunt Marie was at that point one day and continued working. She couldn't just hand in her badge. You're a Grimm; you can't switch it off. It's in your genes. She became harder, colder, more detached, and she took lives no matter who they were. When she died she told me to only kill the bad ones. I think it's what we were supposed to be hundreds of years ago, then everything got turned around."

"There are fine examples of that in every history book in every country," Hank said slowly.

"Yeah. I have a very bloody family history."

His partner looked at him long and hard.

"I'm not a killer, Hank. I'm not going around beheading wesen."

"Good to know."

"When we ran into Monroe the first time I saw what he was. I saw a guy turn part wolf. After I saw some kind of troll go at my aunt. I didn't kill him. I'm a cop, Hank."

Griffin nodded.

"Those I had to shoot… It was my last resort."

"Okay. You aunt… she came around in the end when she told you to only kill the bad ones, hm?"

Nick nodded slowly. "There was a lot of other stuff going on at the time that I wasn't aware of."

Hank shot him a quizzical look, but Nick didn't want to get into that right here and right now.

"There's a game on tonight," his partner said casually, the invitation clear.

Nick smiled. "Sounds good."

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By the end of the game, which none of the two men had really watched, Hank knew about Marie's deal with Renard, about Nick's family, the history of violence, and so much more.

Looking into the slightly gray expression, Nick knew his partner had a lot to digest.

"Man, Nick…" Hank only muttered. "Talk about emotional baggage!"
And so much more.

But it was easier to handle matters now. He had friends among the wesen world, he had a partner who knew, he had a mate who had stopped shielding him from politics and involved him as he should be involved as a Guardian's right hand.

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Nick kept up with his training. Actually, he had set his levels higher, was spending a lot more time on mastering the various weapons, and he worked on his endurance and flexibility. Sean had agreed to help, making only one sly reference to Nick's flexibility. Otherwise the training was serious business that left the young Grimm aching and bruised most of the time, but it also worked on his already present edge.

Seeing how he also advanced concerning his ability to take on a regnant and actually think he could score a few points now and then, Nick knew he was learning more than other Grimms in the past. Having Monroe as a second training partner helped him vary his take on situations, and whenever a real-life chase or confrontation happened with a wesen, Nick noticed his growing abilities to handle things.

He wasn't perfect.

He still got banged up.

Wesen still got the jump on him sometimes. But his senses adjusted. He listened to that tingle, that strange buzz or whisper. Never more, never clear, but it was there, this warning, this awareness.

He still wasn't faster than his mate.

He still couldn't see in the dark.

He still didn't have extraordinary hearing.

He worked with what he had.

Yes, things were calmer now.

And sometimes, when matters were at the calmest point in life, things hit the fan.

Violently.

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The blood rushed in his ears and his heart hammered in his chest. His lungs were struggling with each breath. He felt winded. His muscles ached, his whole body hurt and maybe there was a broken bone or two. If not broken, then definitely cracked.

Nick Burkhardt lay on his bay, staring at the ceiling above him. Way above him. It was a huge building, an old, abandoned warehouse, and the sun was shining through the cracks in the steel roof. Patches of light dotted the floor, dust dancing in the spotlight.

Nick closed his eyes and steeled himself, then rolled onto one side and slowly got up. His ribs protested and he felt a little lightheaded. Concussion? Then again, getting thrown around by an insane wesen fixated on killing him wasn't healthy.

He glanced at the still body not far away. The eyes staring back at him were empty; dead. Dead like the freakishly fast creature that had been after him for whatever reason.

The kill had been more luck than ability on his part, his brain told him.

Nick swayed a little on his feet, then his head cleared some more. He put his weapon back into its holster and walked over to the dead body. The man had spoken little and those words had been laced with an accent. Now Nick had a dead body on his hands and he had no idea why the man had been after him.

Well, maybe just for the sole reason because he was a Grimm. That was usually enough. Being a Grimm painted a big bull's eyes on his back anyway.

Nick sighed and pulled out his cell. He needed help.

Help with a shovel.

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"He was a mauvais dentes?!"

Nick winced as Monroe tightened the bandage around his chest. "I don't know if that's what they are called, but if it means vicious, long teeth and a bad attitude, then yeah, it was that."

"Dude!" Monroe shook his head and taped the bandage in place. "Those are not just vicious, they're born killers. I mean, blutbaden are bad when we get into the right mood, and we're known to kill our own blood if that mood is downright nasty, but mauvais dentes? They are rare and born killing machines! They are hired to take out guys like… well, you. Grimms are high on their list. I know of that one story my grandpa told me about a mauvais dentes taking out a whole village. No one survived. It was a blood bath in the very sense of the word. Was over in a minute. They play, they hunt, they let you think you escaped, just to get you after all."

He shuddered a little.

Nick wished the painkiller would work. His head hurt, his ribs hurt, his brain was a mess of pain as well, and the ice bag in his hand was making his fingers freeze.

"There. Almost as good as new," Monroe announced.

He gave his friend a half-hearted glare. "I know what new feels like. This isn't it." He applied the ice pack to his throbbing head.

"You could be dead, so maybe-not-new is a better physical state for a Grimm."

Nick pulled his shirt back on, moving slowly as not to aggravate his hurt ribs. According to Monroe they weren't broken, but the bruises were bad enough and the blutbad suspected at least one cracked one.

"So I guess he was after the Grimm then, not me."

"You are that Grimm, Nick," Monroe pointed out.

Nick grimaced. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I know, and yes, I think he was after the Grimm. They are killers for hire, so someone sent him. It's not like they go out of their way to work for free. You run onto a mauvais dentes, he won't attack you unless there's a price on your head."

"Who sent him?"

"You're asking me? Nick, there's a whole family tree out there who would love to see you dead. Royal family," Monroe added ominously.

"Huh."

Nick wondered if they Families were stupid enough to send an assassin into a protected city after a regnant's mate. The answer might be a big, fat 'yes, they are' if Monroe's suspicion was correct. Sean Renard had grown very powerful with a Grimm allied to him, a Grimm who was also his mate. They had made attempts already, but again?

He sighed.

"Thanks for helping me out," he said, accepting a mug of herbal tea.

"Hey, as they say: friends help friends move. Best friends help move bodies."

Nick smiled, sipping at the tea. It was good and more than likely wholly organic and fair trade.

"You need to tell Renard," the blutbad added.

"I will. Haven't seen a lot of him lately. There was a string of bad cases. Seeing that I was the target of a mauvais dentes, some of that stuff might even be related to him. We had a couple of dock workers found dead in a shipping container. Their bodies were mutilated and torn."

Monroe shrugged. "Sounds suspiciously like one of them."

"The ship came from Rotterdam."

"Europe." Another nod. "Family stuff. Geez, they really are unhappy about Renard."

"And me."

"They're always unhappy about Grimms, man. No offense."

"None taken."

"You're a thorn in their sides, but to go after you when you are mated to a Guardian? Guts. Someone's pissed."

"Someone's going to throw a fit if someone hears about this," Nick sighed.

Sean would be far from happy. He would actually blow more than one fuse and maybe – most likely – do something stupid.

Nick would have to make sure that retaliation wouldn't result in an all-out war.

All in a day's work.

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Nick swung by the trailer and searched through Marie's books for anything on the mauvais dentes. His ribs protested sitting down, but standing upright all the time wasn't fun either. He finally found a good position to go over the books.

What he found wasn't pleasant, but it confirmed Monroe's suspicions. Someone had sent this vicious predator after him. Someone based in Europe. Mauvais dentes were mostly seen in the Old World, as an ancestor had written down.

Well.

So much for the families keeping their fingers out of Portland's affairs.

Nick looked at the hand-drawn image of the black-and-white striped creature with the inch-long teeth and the blood dripping from them.

Yeah.

So much for that.

tbc...