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I made myself sad thinking about Tim being alone at his home when growing up and only having someone to talk to when he went to school and so I decided to make him a cat but because it’s Tim it’s not going to be that simple:
Instead:
Imagine Tim who accidently gets a witches familiar.
It starts when he’s six and his parents flight was delayed so he decides to use the extra time to go find some wild flowers in the backyard forest to bring them. He doesn’t know the space very well but he knows enough to make sure he can always see the manner he lives in and keeps a torch and a few snacks with him just in case.
When he first sees the shadow like figure in the corner of his eye the little boy freaks out but manages to calm down enough to take the dozen flowers he had and start heading back. He feels something watching him all the way home and that night when he looks out his window Dow he swears he see more movement.
He swears to leave it be because lords knows he’s too young to be dealing with ghost and monsters.
But there’s one problem that will never change in regards to Tim Drake: he’s too curious.
Once his parents leave again Tim is back on the border of the forest and calls out a cautious ‘hello?’ Into the small kingdom of trees.
Nothing happens and so the next time he brings an offering in the form of a pile of nuts, a pair of his mums earrings she had thrown in the bin because they were apparently unsightly after the turn of the century, as well as a marshmallow from his very secret and special stash.
The next day he found a four holed button the colour of one of the Aster flowers he had given his parents when he first felt the presence.
He made it into a bracelet and wore it proudly for the next few days before his dad made him take it off before a gala.
Luckily the thing in the forest didn’t seem to take offence and instead he found the charm he had left on his desk safely hanging from his window sill without his input.
Tim brought several gifts for his new mysterious friend, mainly marshmallows and bits of his mums jewlery she was didn’t wear anymore.
Whenever he left nuts or any other kind of food it was never moved, even other sweets and treats stayed where he left them.
It’s a year after this little tradition starts that Tim actually sees the presence that he had been calling ‘Curious’.
It’s from a distance as he’s going through photos of Batman on his window sill, legs tucked up and back pressed against the wooden frame that brackets the window. He looks up periodically to the small pile of marshmallows he’s left on a plate just where the woods start, waiting for them to suddenly vanish before he goes to bed, when he looks up and sees it.
It’s tall, as tall as the trees and cloaked in shadows and darkness, so much so it’d be impossible to miss even if the light of his room wasn’t shining out towards it.
Tim gasps silently but doesn’t look away or feel fear, because something in him just knows that this is his friend. This is Curious.
Instead he finds himself smiling, possibly beaming at the animated dark before him.
Curious doesn’t smile back or wave or anything and yet Tim can feel a relief and happiness that’s second to his own and yet feels like it’s his.
When Tim blinks the shadows have reached out to lift the marshmallows into its veil like form, long fingers that seem twice the amount of a humans curl like spider legs around the surgery sweets and then they are lost in the dark of its form.
Tim goes to sleep that night with excitement and hope in his heart, a burning curiosity in his heart as hundreds of questions and theories rattle his brain, but it’s all unimportant compared to the fact that he has a friend at home.
He has someone to, in a way, live with.
The next morning he wakes to his alarm and a heavy weight on his chest.
Tim opens his eyes to see a fluffy monstrosity of a cat, big golden eyes hidden in light brown and grey fur staring at him with so much knowing and understanding. It’s more than even Ives shows him when Tim brushes off questions about his parents.
He knows just as he did the night before that this is Curious.
His Curious.
He cautiously reached a hand to pat the fur and watches his hand disappear into the soft fur like its quicksand. When a loud purr, slightly echoing like its not quite real, rumbles through the little body Tim beams again and squeezes the feline shape as close as he can.
Curious doesn’t leave Tim’s side very often, only when Tim goes bathroom does he give him space. When Tim starts training to be Robin Curious shifts his body into Tim’s shadow so he can follow without having to deal with Batman’s security rules.
Curious follows Tim when he goes to train with Shiva, when he goes to space with his team, when he goes on his trip around the world to save Bruce, but it’s painful for the little familiar because Tim isn’t actually a witch.
Which means there is no power for Curious to draw from and so it’s unable to help at all.
It can change its form but the only physical contact it can make is with its master, it can’t fight with Tim or defend him when he needs it.
And yet Tim doesn’t mind.
While Curious feels like a failure for being unable to do anything for his master, Tim rewards it all the time. Constantly is he giving it new necklaces for its cat shape and marshmallows when they stay guard all night while he sleeps.
In the face of such powerlessness, Curious vows to find ways to help its Tim.
So, it’s a sentry of a sort. No one can sneak up on Tim Drake or Red Robin, because he will always just know that someone is there. No one ever suspects that it’s his weirdly attached cat or his own shadow alerting him with a soul like connection.
Everyone in the family knows that Tim has a cat, because one time Damian got all mopey at dinner and complained that the stray cat he found around the manner lawns wasn’t being his friend no matter what he did.
He ranted about how he brought it food and water and toys but the unnaturally fluffy cat would just stare at him before running off.
When Tim realises that he means Curious he snorts, making Damian glare at him and demand to know what he finds so funny.
Tim simply makes a ‘sst’ like sound twice and suddenly the big cat his waltzing out from under the table and into Tim’s lap.
Damian is furious but mostly embarrassed, acting like he’s upset that Tim didn’t tell him he had a cat when instead he’s upset that he befriended a cat Damian couldn’t.
Tim explains that Curious has been his cat for years and doesn’t like anyone else, so not to take it personally, and when they ask what the gender is Tim reply’s cryptically, “it doesn’t like gender.”
No one knows what to say to that as Tim leaves the room with the cat in his arms, but they all witness the cat lean over his shoulder and lick a long black tendril over his own face.
Bruce nearly sprains something with how quickly he stands up.