"Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?"
- Unkown
...
"Disguise? Why would you think that?"
'Dean' paused with his hand reaching towards the glass case and turned to look at Robin, a playful smile on his face.
He tightly pinched his own face but didn't rip off any kind of mask before asking the question.
"Why isn't this my real face? I'm Dean Thurston, and Dean Thurston is the Phantom Thief."
'Dean' raised both hands in a motion of complete surrender, saying, "So, how is it? How does it feel to see your best friend as the Phantom Thief? Do you want to let me go for old times' sake?"
"Save it, Phantom Thief! In the past, I might have fallen for your tricks, but now I see through all your actions."
Robin looked at 'Dean' with confidence and a smirk on his face.
"Phantom Thief, since you know my real identity, then you must have done a detailed investigation on me, and you must also know about my relationships, and disguising yourself as Dean is your best choice."
"Unfortunately, you got one thing wrong from the beginning, and that's the fact that Dean could never be the Phantom Thief!"
"Oh?"
'Dean' properly showed a surprised expression on his face.
"During the incident at the Natural History Museum, Batgirl and I already confirmed Dean's identity. When you arrived at the museum, he was still at his own home. Unless Dean can split himself, you can't possibly be him!"
Hearing this, 'Dean' immediately nodded in realization and said, "I see, you had suspicions about Dean Thurston being me before, and it seems you even secretly monitored him? Tsk tsk..."
'Dean' clicked his tongue and said, "Monitoring even your best friend—is that the way you superheroes work? Well, I could never do something like that."
Robin's expression froze, then he snorted and said, "Saying all this won't change the fact of my determination to catch you!"
"Well, even if you can be sure that Dean is not the Phantom Thief, how can you explain this face of mine?"
'Dean' poked his own cheek and spread his hands outwards, saying, "I have gone through two identity verifications by the GCPD and passed both, you know. Do I look exactly like Dean Thurston? Can the world have such a coincidence?"
"When Harvey Bullock couldn't pull off your disguise mask during the identity check, which indeed confused me, there was even a moment where I wondered if Dean might actually be The Phantom Thief."
Robin crossed his arms and stared at 'Dean' in front of him.
"When I thought back to how you used feathers to distract us, I figured out how you passed the inspection."
Robin showed a gray feather from somewhere and raised it slowly.
"This feather is actually dyed with paint, it's not naturally gray. So why did you dye it?"
He pointed his finger at the ceiling.
"Because the color of the ceiling of the exhibition hall is gray. I guess you disguised yourself as a worker here and used the opportunity to stick feathers to the ceiling using special glue that loses its stickiness after some time. This would create the illusion of countless feathers appearing in the exhibition hall out of thin air."
"You only gave us a date instead of a specific time because you couldn't be sure exactly when the glue would weaken, so you just estimated it. Just like now, there are still some feathers sticking to the ceiling."
Dean looked up and saw some feathers still on the ceiling.
"I didn't think you'd figure it out, Robin. Impressive."
'Dean' smiled faintly.
"But what do feathers have to do with faces?"
"Who said anything about feathers?"
Robin's lips curled into a smirk.
"I was talking about the glue."
'Dean's' expression shifted slightly, and he casually said, "You're very clever."
"Unless you and Dean are identical twins, I find it hard to believe that your appearances are so similar. Especially when both of you are skilled in magic. It's either a very small chance or a trick that was made on purpose!"
Robin looked determined, and his voice was loud.
"To prevent a disguise mask from being removed is actually very simple, and anyone can easily do it. Even though this method is so simple that it's hard to believe anyone would really do it, as Dean would say..."
"A magician must do what others cannot. Whether it's rough or fake, as long as it achieves the desired result, it's worth doing."
Robin looked at the fake Dean with admiration.
"Phantom Thief, you used strong glue to stick Dean's disguise mask to your own face. Did you not think that you could have to rip off your skin?"
"You've been keeping this face since the beginning, not because you didn't want to take off your disguise, but because you couldn't remove it, right?"
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap!
"What an amazing deduction! All the evidence is so well connected. If I were to deny it now, I would seem rather ignorant, wouldn't I?"
'Phantom Thief' applauded repeatedly and suddenly crossed his hands and forcefully pulled at the clothes on his shoulders, all in an instant.
With a tearing sound, the original clothes were suddenly torn off immediately.
It was replaced by an extremely elegant white suit.
The Phantom Thief had revealed his true self!
Just like before, his appearance was usual.
The white style, the sharp figure, the elegant posture, the playful gaze, and the ever-mysterious glint of the monocle.
'I can't hold it in anymore. If I keep going like this, I'll burst out laughing. Good thing, I'm good at keeping a poker face,'
Dean thought to himself as he changed into the Phantom Thief suit.
'I didn't expect Robin to think that I glued a disguise mask to my face. I thought he would suspect some kind of shape-shifting superpower. Well, let's just let this mistake grow even bigger!"
Even though the Phantom Thief's monocle made it hard to see his face, Robin, who had encountered him many times before, noticed some small changes.
The current Phantom Thief seemed to have a slightly larger face than before, which didn't exceed Robin's expectations.
After all, in his view, Phantom Thief was now wearing an extra layer of mask on his face.
'Just as I suspected, today Phantom Thief only used the identity of Dean for the entire time. It's quite different from his usual style of constantly changing identities. Maybe some reasons stopped him from changing many identities, there can't be any other explanation!'
Robin stared and thought to himself.
...
A/N: If we reach 500 power stones today, I will release an additional chapter tomorrow.
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