History Main / ClothingConcealedInjury

** The final piece of evidence Father Brown uses to identify the killer in "The Crimson Feather" is that one of the suspects has not removed their gloves since the body was discovered. When the gloves are removed, there is [[RevealingInjury a deep cut on the murderer's palm from the shard of broken mirror they used to stab the victim]].

-->--'''Gustav "Old Red" Amlingmeyer''', ''Literature/HolmesOnTheRange'', "Curious Incidents"

** In episode 2.05, "Dancing with the Fishes," Lindsay encounters a woman who exploits this. She uses makeup to fake a black eye, then wears sunglasses to cover it up.
** Justified and downplayed by Mac, whose battle scar from the 1983 Beruit Marine Barracks bombing is naturally covered by his shirt. When Stella sees it when he's being checked out by the paramedics after the explosion in episode 2.24, "Charge of This Post," he merely comments, "Old injury."
** Reed constantly wears a scarf to hide his neck injury inflicted by the Cabbie Killer in season 4.

** In "The Forgotten Turnabout" from ''Gyakuten Kenji 2'', there is an inverted example of the victim having an unrelated burn mark on her hand that was visible when her body is discovered, but then it turns out she normally wears gloves to hide them. [[spoiler:There was a taped recording of the murder, with the lone piece of dialogue determined to be the culprit mentioning the victim's burns. But when it was revealed the victim was actually wearing gloves during her murder, this meant the recording was actually the victim talking about the culprit's burn mark. A straight example of this trope follows as the culprit was exposed when it was determined he was hiding his burn under his fake beard.]]

** In the climax of ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney: Trials and Tribulations'', Phoenix figured out the real killer himself was attacked with a knife and therefore should have a wound on his body. However, at first glance, his suspect doesn't have any wounds. Not only that, he was still wearing the same clothes he wore during the murder, and they are still intact. Phoenix then realizes that the wound is [[spoiler:under the killer's mask, a special prosthetic the killer always wears due to his damaged vision]]. At this point, the suspect finally admits defeat upon being unmasked as the real killer.

Clothing-Concealed Injury is when a character uses a piece of clothing to keep their wounds or scars a secret from others. This is often done with sunglasses to hide black eyes, scarves to hide neck injuries, or long shirts or pants to hide wounds on arms or legs. Makeup also gets used for concealment purposes, usually to cover up cuts or bruises on the face. Technically, an {{eyepatch|OfPower}} is this, but it's such a specific article of clothing that's not worn otherwise, so people know it's usually covering up some sort of EyeScream. Occasionally, this clothing is something that the character usually doesn't wear or is not suitable for the current situation or weather, such as wearing scarves and jackets when it's warm out, making other characters suspicious. The character will sometimes make [[BlatantLies strange excuses]] as to why they are wearing these clothes, which will raise further suspicion.

* ''Literature/TheMurderbotDiaries''. Murderbot prefers a long-sleeved shirt with collar to hide the data port on its neck and the [[ArmCannon weapon portals in his arms.]] Thanks to a friendly sentient spaceship who used an AutoDoc to modify Murderbot's body, this is enough to pass as a human with cybernetic augments. In ''Exit Strategy'', [=GrayCris=] operatives are running a scan for people obscuring their faces with hats, scarves, tattoos, or hoodies. Murderbot just walks right past them with its hoodie down, having already rejected the idea of wearing these items for exactly that reason.

* ''Literature/TheMurderbotDiaries''. Murderbot prefers a long-sleeved shirt with collar to hide the data port on its neck and the [[ArmCannon weapon portals in his arms.]] Thanks to a friendly sentient spaceship who used an AutoDoc to modify Murderbot's body, this is enough to pass as a human with cybernetic augments. In ''Exit Strategy'', [=GrayCris=] operatives are running a search based on people obscuring their faces with hats, scarves, tattoos, or hoodies which they assume a rogue [=SecUnit=] would be wearing. Murderbot just walks right past them with its hoodie down, having already rejected the idea of wearing these items for exactly that reason.

* ''Literature/TheMurderbotDiaries''. Inverted in ''Exit Strategy'' when Murderbot slips past [=GrayCris=] operatives who are running a search based on people obscuring their faces with hats, scarves, tattoos, or hoodies. They don't know that Murderbot has had the AutoDoc on a friendly sentient spaceship modify its body to look like an augmented human, so it just walks right past them with its hoodie down.

A supertrope to SecretStabWound and HidingTheHandicap. Can overlap with RevealingCoverUp if wearing a certain piece of clothing makes it obvious that a character is hiding something. Often occurs with people who have done SelfHarm, have been in some kind of fight, or are a victim of DomesticAbuse. BringMyRedJacket (and, humorously, BringMyBrownPants) are related tropes wherein a character anticipates the future need to conceal an injury. May be one reason a character wears ConspicuousGloves. Contrast CutHimselfShaving where the injuries are visible, but the ''reason'' is concealed with an excuse.

* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/23076301 Brother's Intuition]]'', an ''WesternAnimation/{{Onward}}'' one-shot, has Barley walks in on Ian covering up a bruise on his chin with their mother's foundation. Ian claims that he got it from [[CutHimselfShaving falling while getting off the bus]], but Barley doesn't buy it, so he goes to the school the next day and sees Ian getting beaten up by bullies.

* ''Film/{{Sisu}}''
* : Schultze never removes his tanker's helmet except for one HatsOffToTheDead scene, and this may be because taking it off reveals some ugly third-degree burns on the side of his head and a missing ear.

Clothing-Concealed Injury is when a character uses a piece of clothing to keep their wounds or scars a secret from others. This is often done with sunglasses to hide black-eyes, scarves to hide neck injuries or long shirts or pants to hide wounds on arms or legs. Makeup also gets used for concealment purposes, usually to cover up cuts or bruises on the face. Technically, an [[EyepatchOfPower Eye Patch]] is this, but it's such a specific article of clothing that's not worn otherwise, so people know it's usually covering up some sort of EyeScream. Occasionally, this clothing is something that the character usually doesn't wear or is not suitable for the current situation or weather, such as wearing scarves and jackets when it's warm out, making other characters suspicious. The character will sometimes make [[BlatantLies strange excuses]] as to why they are wearing these clothes, which will raise further suspicion.

Inevitably, the injuries will end up getting revealed, either by accident, force or by willingness of the character (depending on the situation). The character will then be scolded for not telling anyone that they were hurt, which may lead to AnAesop being delivered about why you shouldn't hide injuries from others.

* In ''Manga/CesareIlCreatoreCheHaDistrutto'', Angelo knows that the culprit who started the fire must have a burn scar on his shoulder from that night, when his robes caught fire. Because they're usually covered by clothing, it isn't until much later that Angelo finds out that the culprit is [[spoiler: Roberto]], who accidentally reveals that shoulder injury when saving Angelo from drowning.

* ''Fanfic/TheSupermen'': Wesker attempts this in Chapter 2 before trying to get to another Tricell base, since [[NoHonourAmongThieves he is very aware that his "allies" at Tricell would]] [[TheStarscream turn on him]] if they realised he was seriously injured. It would probably be less obvious than most examples of the trope since he isn't dressed [[ConspicuousGloves any differently]] [[SunglassesAtNight to usual]]. It ends up partially deconstructed, since putting clothes on over unhealed third-degree burns is incredibly painful (including quite a bit of skin coming off.)

* In ''Film/TheKarateKid'', Daniel puts on a pair of sunglasses to hide the black eye he got from his first fight with Johnny. His mom isn't fooled for a second, and freaks out about it.

* ''Literature/TheMurderbotDiaries''. Inverted in ''Exit Strategy'' when Murderbot slips past [=GrayCris=] operatives who are running a search based on people obscuring their faces with hats, scarves, tattoos or hoodies. They don't know that Murderbot has had the AutoDoc on a friendly sentient spaceship modify its body to look like an augmented human, so it just walks right past them with its hoodie down.

* ''Literature/WhodunitMysteries:'' In one story, Parnacki investigates a robbery where the store owner and his assailant injured each other. He interviews the suspects, and quickly zeroes in on the one man who's wearing a long-sleeved shirt on a hot summer day. He rolls up the man's sleeves and finds injuries from the struggle.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' has characters occasionally do this, usually to cover up a vampire bite. In the fifth season premiere Buffy uses a scarf to cover up where Dracula bit her the night before. Later in the season Riley starts wearing turtlenecks and longer sleeves to cover up the fact that he's been going to a "vampire brothel" where humans pay to get bitten deliberately.

** In episode 2.05, "Dancing with the Fishes," Lindsay encounters a woman who exploits this. She uses makeup to fake a black-eye, then wears sunglasses to cover it up.

* In the ''Series/GoodLuckCharlie'' episode "Boys Meet Girls", Gabe gets beat up by a girl bully twice and tries to hide the injuries in both instances. The first is when he hides his black-eye with a green cap, and the second is when he hides his busted lip by zipping up his jacket. His older sister, Teddy, doesn't fall for either case.

* ''Series/Sense8'': Daniela goes back to her abusive ex-boyfriend to stop him blackmailing Lito and Hernando with pictures of them having sex. When she meets up with them to hand over the phone containing the pictures she's wearing sunglasses even though it's [[SunglassesAtNight the middle of the night]]. Hernando, sensing that something's wrong, pulls Dani's shades off to reveal a fresh black eye courtesy of the ex-boyfriend.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'': In "[[Recap/TheAmazingWorldofGumballS1E36TheFight The Fight]]", Gumball gets a black-eye from a fight with Tina Rex and tries to hide it with sunglasses. His mom isn't fooled, and when he states that he ran into a door (which is technically true, but it only happened because Tina was chasing him), Anais tells her that he's getting bullied. Nicole is ''[[MamaBear furious]]'' when she hears this.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': In "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS10E3ScreamsOFSilenceTheStoryOfBrendaQ Screams of Silence: The Story of Brenda Q]]", Quagmire's sister Brenda wears a pair of sunglasses when she meets with Lois at a restaurant. She reluctantly takes them off to reveal that she received a black-eye from her [[DomesticAbuse jerkass boyfriend]] Jeff.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS5E14BlackenedSpongeMermaidManVsSpongeBob Blackened Sponge]]", [=SpongeBob=] gets a black-eye from being hit with a wrench when he tries to use it to open a tube of toothpaste, so he covers it up with glasses. It doesn't last long, as Patrick removes them and he is shocked to see that his friend is hurt. Not wanting to reveal the real reason he got injured, [=SpongBob=] claims that he got in a fight with a guy named Jack M. Crazyfish.

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]
* One {{Urban Legend|s}} has a man marry a woman who always wears a scarf around her neck. Depending on the version, he either slips it off in her sleep or she finally gives him permission to remove it on her death bed, whereupon her head falls off. This either [[MortalWoundReveal kills her]] or [[LosingYourHead makes her very angry]].
[[/folder]]

* ''Literature/TheMurderbotDiaries''. Inverted in ''Exit Strategy'' when Murderbot slips past GrayCris operatives who are running a search based on people obscuring their faces with hats, scarves, tattoos or hoodies. They don't know that Murderbot has had the AutoDoc on a friendly sentient spaceship modify its body to look like an augmented human, so it just walks right past them with its hoodie down.

* ''LightNovel/TrappedInADatingSimTheWorldOfOtomeGamesIsToughForMobs'': [[spoiler:Noelle hides the bruises [[DomesticAbuse she received from Loic]] underneath her clothes.]]

* An EXTREMELY disturbing version happens in ''WesternAnimation/SuicideSquadHellToPay''. Reverse-Flash is one of the main villains of the movie and one of many trying to get their hands on the fabled [[KarmaHoudini Get-Out-Of-Hell-Free Card]]. Then we find out why: [[spoiler: He takes off his mask and reveals a ''hole in his forehead''.]] This is the same Reverse-Flash from ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheFlashpointParadox'' who was [[spoiler: shot in the head by Batman, and he used his powers to slow his bodily processes split-seconds before dying, and he's desperate to find the card before his time runs out.]]