Chapter Text
The entire courtroom seemed to hold its breath.
The silence that preceded the decision was almost palpable
as if every wall, every chair, every held breath waited, tensely, for the inevitable outcome.
Judge Douglas Thomas adjusted his glasses, looking seriously at the faces before him.
His tone was serious, formal, but loaded with a weight that even he could not disguise.
“After considering the testimony, the evidence presented, and the well-being of the children involved in this case…” he began, his eyes roaming alternately between the parents “…the court has reached a decision.”
Talia closed her eyes tightly.
Her hands were shaking in her lap.
Harvey, beside her, was swallowing hard.
Bruce Wayne, on the other hand, was motionless.
His posture was erect, his face serene.
His fingers interlaced on the table as if he was calmly awaiting the announcement of an investment stock market.
But deep in his eyes,
there, deep inside,
there was a dark spark, of victory about to be savored.
The judge took a deep breath, then said:
“The final and exclusive custody of Damian Wayne, Jason Todd Wayne and Cassandra Cain Wayne will be granted to Mr. Bruce Wayne.”
It was as if the ceiling had caved in on half the room.
Tália al Ghul’s world shattered at that sentence. In an instant, she leaned forward, her teary eyes fixed on the judge, as if she could undo the words with a single desperate look.
“No… no… this can’t be right…” she whispered, choking on her own air.
Bruce remained silent. Only his lips curved
discreetly
coldly
in a restrained smile.
He had won.
Once again.
With strategy, patience and control.
Tália rose from her chair in a shaky movement, her eyes wide.
Her voice broke the silence with a tearing pain.
“They are my children! They can’t take them away from me!” she screamed, almost stumbling as she took a step forward, before Harvey grabbed her firmly by the arms.
“Tália, please… calm down. We’re going to appeal. We’re going to appeal…” he repeated, his voice low and distressed.
But she didn’t listen.
Her gaze was fixed on the judge, begging for mercy, for logic, for anything.
“You don’t understand… he’s not safe! He manipulates them! He lies!”
Damian, sitting in the front row, watched everything with wide eyes.
A tremor took over his small body.
When he heard his father’s name as the new guardian, he cringed, as if trying to disappear from reality.
“No…” he murmured. “I don’t want… I don’t want to go with him…”
Jason stood up abruptly, his hands clenched and his eyes moist, fixed on Bruce.
“This is sick.” His voice was low and full of hatred.
Bruce looked at him lightly.
That expression that was never anger or aggression.
It was worse: superiority.
As if Jason were a flawed piece on his board, but still part of the game.
“Everything I do is for your own good,” he replied calmly. “In the long run, you’ll understand.”
Jason seemed on the verge of exploding, but was interrupted by the sound of a loud sob.
Damian had run into his mother’s arms, burying himself against her chest in desperation.
“Mommy… don’t let him take us… please…” he cried, holding on tightly, as if trying to merge with her, in a last act of emotional survival.
Talia held him with both hands, one behind his head, the other on his back, trying to protect him from the world, from his father, from the sentence. But there was no shield left.
“My love… I’m so sorry… I tried… I swear to God I tried…” she whispered, as tears ran freely down her face.”
The judge, with regret in his eyes, continued, impassive:
“Mrs. Talia al Ghul will have until the end of tomorrow to remove her belongings from Mr. Wayne’s residence and say goodbye to the minors. After that, communication will only be permitted with judicial authorization.”
Harvey turned to the judge, indignant.
“Your Honor, with all due respect, this is unacceptable. These children are emotionally unstable—”
“Decision made, Dr. Dent,” the judge said firmly. “Appeals may be filed, but the sentence is effective immediately.”
Cassandra, sitting next to Bruce, was pale.
Her hands were clenched in her dress, her eyes distant, avoiding looking at her mother.
Perhaps she was trying to convince herself that she had done the right thing.
But there was a twinge of doubt growing inside her.
And fear.
Bruce slowly approached his children.
“Come on, Damian.” His voice was soft. Artificially sweet. “It’s okay now. We’re going home.”
Damian didn’t move.
“I don’t want to go… I don’t want to go with him… I don’t want to…” he repeated, his pleading eyes fixed on Talia as court agents began to approach.
Jason looked at the scene, disgusted.
“This is torture,” he muttered. “You’re not a father. You’re a prison sentence with an expensive suit on.”
Bruce ignored him.
He knelt down beside Damian and, with an almost fatherly smile, touched the boy’s shoulder.
“Shhh… Daddy’s here. Everything will be okay. Trust me.”
Damian let out a cry of emotional pain so high-pitched that it shattered the silence of the room.
Two officers had to pull him from his mother's arms.
Tália fought until the end, trying to hold him, but the system's strength was greater.
Harvey tried to contain the chaos.
Jason was punching the wall in the background.
And Bruce... Bruce just watched.
His game was over.
And he had won.
Lucius Fox arrived at his side, handing over the decision documents.
"Everything signed. The press doesn't even know what happened, much less John. But we're still going to keep up the narrative of a responsible and rehabilitated father."
Bruce nodded, his eyes still on his children.
“It’s only a matter of time before everyone forgets about the rest.”
Cassandra slowly stood up.
She took one last look at her mother, and what she saw was devastating
a broken woman.
Kneeling on the courtroom floor, her eyes empty, as if everything that gave her life meaning had been ripped away.
She said nothing.
None of them did.
They just followed Bruce.
Like obedient prisoners.
And he walked before them like a general leaving a battle
not with glory, but with the certainty that he had destroyed everything he needed to in order to win.
And no one in that room would ever forget the sound of Damian's cries as he was carried away.
Pain
Suffering
Something that would be marked like the beginning of that year
1983
The house was strangely silent.
A silence filled with echoes, as if the furniture, the walls, and even the floor knew that this was no ordinary day
it was the end.
Tália walked slowly down the upstairs hallway, her hands absently caressing the dark wooden banister.
Her eyes wandered over the details: the paintings she had never liked, the expensive rug Bruce had insisted on keeping, the mirror she cleaned herself every morning with her fingertips.
Nothing else mattered now.
Her suitcase was open on the bed in the old guest room.
The clothes were being folded with an almost ritualistic slowness.
But more than clothes, Talia was collecting pieces of the life she had built there
pieces that were now being ripped away from her.
On the dresser, she found a picture frame hidden under a pile of books.
It was a simple photo.
Damian, small, in her arms; Jason, still with a frown but smiling sideways; and Cassandra, her face hidden behind a sketchbook.
Bruce was not in the picture.
She touched the frame with trembling fingers and placed it in her bag as if it were a treasure.
The sound of the suitcase being dragged echoed down the cold marble of the stairs.
Each step Talia took seemed slower, heavier.
As if, unconsciously, she was trying to delay the inevitable.
She had spent the morning gathering her things in silence, alone in the guest room where Bruce had made her sleep since the legal proceedings had begun.
None of the furniture was hers.
No decorative pieces belonged to her.
Only the small objects held some truth
the photo frames hidden among the drawers, Damian's drawings kept with care, the scarf embroidered by Cassandra when she was still a shy little girl who ran into his arms.
Memories that weighed more than any physical baggage.
In the living room, Jason was already waiting.
Sitting sideways on the arm of the couch, his fists clenched and his jaw tense, he looked like a bomb about to explode.
But he said nothing.
Words, he knew, would do no good.
Damian, on the other hand, was kneeling on the floor near the door, his hands gripping the stair railing as if he could stop his mother from leaving with the strength of his fingers.
His face was devastated, his eyes puffy, his breath caught in silent sobs.
He wasn't crying anymore,
he just looked empty.
Destroyed.
Cassandra stood near the kitchen, watching from afar.
Her arms crossed, her expression neutral, trying to hide any sign of emotion.
But there was something in her eyes… hesitation, perhaps even remorse.
Talia stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked at each of them in turn.
Her heart was pounding hard, as if it wanted to escape her chest.
And yet, she took a deep breath, tried to straighten her shoulders for them.
Only for them.
Damian was the first to break the silence.
“Please, Mommy… don’t leave me here. I… I’ll go with you. I can run away, I… I’ll hide in the car, no one will see…” he said desperately, pulling on the sleeve of her coat. “Take me away… take me, please! I don’t want to be with him, I don’t want to!”
Talia fell to her knees beside him, wrapping her arms around him tightly, as if she could protect him from the entire world.
The boy sobbed against her chest, his small shoulders shaking so much it seemed like he would collapse right there.
“Shhh, my love… I wish I could take you, I wish I could…” she whispered, her voice breaking. “You are my life, Damian. You and your brothers always will be. But now… now Mommy needs to trust that you will be strong.”
“But I am not strong! I am weak without you!” he cried, lifting his tear-stained face. “I hate him! I hate this place!”
Talia cried with him.
He wanted to tell her that everything would be okay, but he didn’t believe it.
There was no lie he could tell now.
Jason, swallowing his anger, approached.
He touched his brother’s shoulder gently.
“You’re not alone, kid. We’re in this together,” he said, but his voice was hard, broken. He turned to his mother. “They made a mistake. They’re going to pay for this, Mom. All of them. And he…”
“No, Jason…” Talia cut him off softly. “You can’t live with anger. I know it hurts, my son. But don’t let him change you. You’re better than him.”
Jason lowered his eyes, his fists shaking.
He didn’t trust his own voice.
It was then that the library door opened.
Bruce walked in with the calm of someone who had just closed a profitable deal.
He was wearing a dark suit, his tie knotted perfectly.
Beside him, Lucius maintained a discreet, almost absent posture, but with that clinical gaze that never failed to analyze the scene around him.
“Talia,” Bruce said coldly. “The driver is already at the gate. The judge’s decision was clear: you have until the end of the day to gather your belongings and say goodbye. Let’s not overstep that limit, okay?”
Talia stood up slowly, not looking at him.
Bruce then turned to his children.
His voice softened as if changing masks.
“Cassandra, my dear, help your mother with what’s left. Jason, stay with Damian, please. You’ll have plenty of time to get organized. Now… it’s important that everything ends in a civilized manner.”
Damian shouted
“CIVILIZED?! YOU ROBBED ME OF MY MOTHER!”
“Damian,” Bruce replied, with an authoritative tone. “You still don’t understand. I’m saving you.”
“LIE! You’ve been lying since the beginning!”
Bruce bent down to look at him, his eyes piercing.
He placed his hand on his son’s shoulder
a gentle gesture for those watching, but there was a hardness in the pressure of his fingers.
“You’ll understand. One day. I’m the only one who can prepare you for what’s coming.”
Damian paled, stifling his tears, cringing.
He looked at his mother in panic, as if asking for help with his eyes.
But all Talia could do was open her arms and wrap him in a last hug.
“I love you, my little one… all of you… never doubt that. Never.” she whispered.
She pulled away with tears streaming down her face, lightly touching Jason’s hand and Cassandra’s shoulder.
The latter hesitated, her eyes fixed on her mother for a second too long. But she didn’t move.
She didn’t hug.
She didn’t cry.
Bruce was watching.
When Talia walked through the front door, the air seemed to freeze.
Jason went to the window, watching the car disappear through the gates.
Damian was still kneeling on the ground, in shock.
It wasn’t until the door closed behind her that he truly broke down, crying as if a part of his soul had been ripped out.
Bruce, in contrast, turned calmly on his heel.
He glanced at Lucius and exchanged a brief nod.
Everything had gone as planned.
He then headed upstairs, and before going up, he took one last look at his children.
“Tomorrow will be a new beginning for all of us. I hope you know how to seize the opportunity that has been given to you.”
His tone was one of triumph disguised as paternalism.
As if he were the hero of his own story.
Cassandra watched in silence.
A weight sank into her chest, but her expression remained neutral.
She had won the game, yes.
But at what cost?
Jason sat on the floor next to Damian, who was now shaking like a leaf.
He said nothing.
He just stood there.
In the house in silence.
In the absence of the only person who loved them without masks.
And in the distance, in the cold hallways of the house, Bruce's footsteps echoed like a sentence
The taxi moved slowly along the long, tree-lined road that led to the gates of Wayne Manor.
The trees around it seemed taller than ever, as if they formed a corridor of shadows, following the car until it disappeared from the place she had called home for years.
Tália kept her eyes fixed on the window the whole time.
She didn't have the courage to look back.
She knew... she knew that if she looked, if she allowed herself that last glimpse, she would lose what little emotional control she had left.
But even without looking, the image of the house, the image of her children crying, Damian's last words, Cassandra's silence, and Jason's furious gaze were all there, stuck in her head, spinning like a storm.
The tears flowed without asking for permission.
Silent, bitter.
Tália didn't even bother to wipe them.
The driver, a man with a tired expression, respected the silence, as if he understood that any attempt at conversation at that moment would be cruel.
The suitcase, small and discreet, was in the trunk.
It was ridiculous to think that an entire life could fit in so little space now.
Photos, small personal objects, some clothes...
she had left everything else.
The children's rooms, Damian's toys, Cassandra's books, Jason's notebooks...
They were all left behind.
Along with her own children.
The taste of defeat was acidic, suffocating.
She remembered the judge’s words
“You have twenty-four hours to gather your belongings and vacate the residence.”
“Full custody of the children now belongs to Mr. Wayne.”
Memories of the court sessions came back to her like knives.
Lucius’s manipulative questions, Bruce’s cold performance, Cassandra following the script her father had drilled into her head…
and Damian’s crying, his face in pure terror.
Talia squeezed her eyes shut.
“I failed them…”
That sentence kept echoing.
A constant hammering.
She remembered all the nights she had cradled Damian in her arms after a nightmare.
The long conversations with Jason, trying to pull him back when he started to close himself off from the world.
She remembered when Cassandra was too young to speak and Talia would spend hours with her, teaching her to trust, to open up, to smile.
Now…
Now the three of them were in the hands of a man she knew was capable of destroying every bit of happiness they had left.
With every kilometer the taxi drove, she felt further away from them.
As if the car wasn't just crossing the city, but pushing her into an abyss where she would never reach them again.
Her fingers tightly gripped the strap of her bag on her lap, as if that useless gesture would be enough to contain the pain.
But it wasn't.
Her throat burned, her chest felt like it was about to collapse.
She leaned forward a little, breathing hard.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” the driver asked, breaking the silence for the first time, cautiously.
Tália just shook her head in a vague gesture.
An obvious lie.
But it was all she could do.
The view of the city began to appear in the distance.
The lights of the buildings, the busy streets, people coming and going without knowing that, at that very moment, a mother was leaving her children behind, forced, defeated.
“I should have fought harder,” she thought. “I should have protected them better. How could I have let this happen?”
The lump in her throat tightened even more.
She leaned her forehead against the cold glass of the window, letting the tears continue to fall.
The taxi turned right, heading towards the small temporary apartment Harvey had found for her near the city center.
It wasn’t a house.
It wasn’t a home.
It was just an empty space… like she was now.
But at that moment, no matter how hard she tried to breathe, the feeling of helplessness was devastating.
Perhaps the worst she had ever felt.
She lost
Lost everything….
Damian’s room felt smaller that night.
The air was heavy, as if the space itself knew of the absence that lingered in the rooms.
The barely closed curtains let the light from Gotham’s streetlights streak the carpet like a pale scar.
Outside, the sound of horns and sirens continued as always…
indifferent to the fact that a child’s world had just fallen apart.
Damian was curled up in a corner of the bed, his legs folded against his chest, his face wet with tears that no longer made a sound as they fell.
His sobs had turned into shaky, irregular breathing.
His small hands trembled as he stared at one of the pillows, as if it were the last anchor of reality he had left.
“She’s gone…” He whispered to himself, his voice hoarse, barely audible. “She’s gone and she’s not coming back…”
His eyes burned, his nose was stuffy, and every time he tried to take a deep breath, his chest hurt in a way he couldn't describe.
It was like he was gasping for air... as if his whole body was rejecting this new reality.
The door creaked.
Damian froze.
He didn't have the strength to move, he just stood there, hugging himself, as he listened to the slow, careful footsteps crossing the carpet.
“Damian…” Bruce’s voice cut through the silence like a scalpel.
The boy closed his eyes tightly.
He wanted to disappear.
Disappear in that instant.
But the footsteps continued…
all the way to the edge of the bed.
Bruce stopped there, standing up. He observed his son for a few seconds, with that rehearsed calm…
a look of a predator about to attack, but wearing a mask of paternal concern.
“I don’t like seeing you like this, son.” His voice was low, velvety… almost too sweet to be real. “I know today was hard. I know how unfair all of this seems to you…”
Damian bit his lip, the tears streaming down his face again. He didn’t answer.
Bruce sat down next to the bed, a subtle weight that made the mattress sink.
He placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder with studied gentleness, his fingers cool but firm.
“I know how much you love your mother,” he said, his tone understanding and sounding rehearsed word for word. “But… sometimes, the people we love… make mistakes. And sometimes, those mistakes hurt the people they’re supposed to protect the most.”
Damian squeezed his eyes shut even tighter.
“She… she didn’t…” he whispered, his voice breaking.
Bruce smiled slightly.
A small, discreet smile…
but with that venomous edge that he always hid under his teeth.
“No… I know she tried, in every way, to be a good mother.” Bruce sighed, as if he was also suffering. “But… the reality, Damian… is that she lost control. You saw what she did. You saw how she put us in this situation. She… almost killed me that night, remember? She broke a bottle over my head. You saw the blood… remember?”
Damian shivered.
The images of that night were blurred in his memory.
The screams, the broken glass, the blood…
it all jumbled together like a nightmare.
“But…” Bruce continued, squeezing his son’s shoulder a little tighter. “I’m not mad at you. I know this is all confusing for you. You don’t have to choose sides, not now. You just have to trust me… trust that I’ll take care of you.”
He paused carefully, then stood up and walked to the corner of the room where he had left something.
“I brought you something.”
Damian turned his head, still crying
but curious enough to open his eyes a little.
Bruce came back with a large bag in his hands.
A dark plastic bag with the pizza shop logo on it.
“I thought maybe… you might like having new friends around.”
Carefully, Bruce took the plushies out of the bag one by one.
First came Chica.
Yellow, with big eyes and a bib that said “Let’s Eat!”.
Then came Bonnie, with purple fur and a slightly crooked look.
Foxy came right after, with a felt eye patch and a smile with sewn teeth.
“They’re yours now, Damian.” Bruce said, placing the plushies on the bed, near the boy. “your new friends”
Damian, even with his hands shaking, stretched out his fingers and pulled Foxy close to his chest, hugging him tightly.
As if that piece of cloth was capable of warding off the pain that tore at his chest.
But Bruce wasn't finished.
He took two more stuffed animals out of the bag.
One was the traditional Freddy...
brown, with a black hat, black bow. His eyes were round and friendly.
The other...
the other was different.
“This one…” Bruce said, holding the yellow plush in his hands as if it were special. “This one is exclusive. They don’t make it anymore.”
Damian looked up at the strange figure with his puffy eyes.
It was a Freddy… but in a burnt yellow.
His bow tie and top hat were purple.
There was something wrong with the glass eyes…
they seemed sunken in…
as if they were set further away from the fabric of his face.
Even the weight of the plush was different.
A little heavier than the others.
As if… there was something inside.
Damian frowned, running his fingers over the plush's eyes.
"Why is he... like that?" he asked softly, his voice choked with sobs.
Bruce bent down again, placing a loving hand on his son's head.
"Because he's special... just like you." he replied with a smile that hid much more than it revealed. "He'll keep an eye on you, to make sure everything is okay."
Damian hugged the yellow plush toy along with the others, clutching it to his chest with a desperate grip.
Bruce stood up, satisfied, observing the result of his work.
The most fragile son, the most manipulable…
now isolated, destroyed…
and emotionally dependent on him.
“Try to get some rest,” Bruce said, heading towards the door. “I’m so proud of you, Damian. And… I love you.”
The words came out with artificial sweetness, but Damian… hungry for any crumb of comfort…
believed them.
“I… I love you too, Dad…” he replied with a choked voice.
The door closed softly.
Outside, Bruce walked down the hallway with a cold smile on his face.
The game was won.
Every piece in place.
In his room, Damian cried, hugging his new cloth companions…
without knowing that one of them was watching him back…
with glass eyes.
The glass of a camera
A tiny camera, hidden inside the yellow plush’s head…
on and working…
transmitting every sound…
every tear…
every whispered word.
The manipulation had only just begun
For weeks, Bruce Wayne had been planning the new family photo.
It wouldn’t be a casual session, nor a spontaneous keepsake.
It was a symbol.
A milestone.
A visual record of the beginning of a new era: an era without Talia.
Deep down, Bruce didn’t just want a picture.
He wanted a trophy.
He gave advance notice.
He made sure his children knew.
Every single one of them.
Jason learned of the announcement during dinner, when Bruce casually informed him that a professional photography crew would be coming to the mansion in a few weeks.
“Let’s take a new family photo. It’s about time we updated it,” he said, cutting the meat with surgical calm, as if he were talking about something as banal as changing the curtains in the living room.
Jason dropped his cutlery with a thud.
“Update? Really?” His voice was thick with contempt. “Because, of course… ripping our mother out of our lives wasn’t enough. Now you want to pretend she never existed?”
Bruce just looked at him over the rim of his wine glass.
The subtle smile, the practiced patience.
“You can take it however you want, Jason. But the session will happen. And you will be there.”
Jason kicked his chair back and left the room without touching his food.
Damian listened to everything in silence.
His eyes were lowered.
His stomach was churning with anxiety.
The mention of the new photo sounded like a nightmare slowly materializing.
He knew what Bruce wanted with it.
He knew it meant erasing his mother’s image once and for all.
Cassandra, on the other hand, accepted her father’s request almost automatically.
“Sure, Dad. It’ll be nice to have a new photo. It makes sense.” Her smile was forced, but she held it with military discipline.
She’d always been good at that.
The day of the photo shoot arrived.
The photography team was setting up the mansion's main hall.
Tripods, artificial lights, blue-gray backdrops, all positioned with precision.
The photographer was a friendly man, but there was something in the air that made him uncomfortable.
The energy in the room was suffocating. As if an explosion could happen at any moment.
Bruce looked impeccable in a dark suit, purple tie tied in a perfect knot.
Hair slicked back. Statuesque posture.
Cassandra appeared first, wearing a black dress, gold shoes, and a yellow ribbon holding her hair back.
She walked down the stairs with measured steps, stopping next to her father like a programmed shadow.
Jason took longer.
With each step, he seemed to be fighting an internal battle.
He wore a red shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, black pants, and dark shoes.
His face was a mask of pure hatred.
His gaze was fixed and sharp as a blade.
He kept his arms crossed the entire time, his jaw clenched, and he refused to look directly at Bruce.
Damian was the last.
He came down slowly, his eyes puffy from crying so much the night before.
He was wearing what Bruce had picked out
a white dress shirt, a black tie, dark gray pants, and the light green vest
just like the one on the boy in the old photo Bruce had shown him as “inspiration.”
And of course… the yellow Freddy was with him.
Cushioned to his chest, as always.
Damian kept his gaze downcast, as if he were being dragged to a funeral.
The photographer called them to the first position.
Bruce sat on a chair in the center, his hands resting on his knees, his expression hard, just a trace of a cynical smile on the corner of his lips.
Damian stood on the right side, rigid, holding the stuffed animal. He was shaking slightly.
His eyes were wide, as if the very act of breathing was already an effort.
Cassandra positioned herself on Bruce's left, with her hands crossed in front of her, smiling... or at least trying to.
Jason was placed on the other end, standing, with his arms crossed, his gaze furious.
Each click of the camera seemed to torture him even more.
“Okay, let’s go,” the photographer said, trying to lighten the mood. “Now, please… a smile. All together!”
No one moved.
Jason kept his face hard.
Hatred pulsed in every muscle.
Damian… tried. He forced a shy smile, which looked more like a panicked grimace.
His gaze remained fixed on the plush.
Cassandra, trained as she was, gave a polite smile.
Bruce… just kept his expression cold.
A barely perceptible wrinkle of satisfaction at the corner of his mouth.
“Come on…” Bruce said, his voice low but firm. “Smile, children. Smile for the future. Because this year…”
He paused, looking directly into the camera lens.
“This year will bring nothing but glory to our family.”
Jason gritted his teeth.
He almost rushed at his father at that moment.
He only held himself back by a thread of self-control.
The photographer clicked the image.
The moment was immortalized.
A portrait of a family that only seemed united.
Hours later, the photo was already being printed in Bruce's office.
The man looked at the proof of the image with a satisfied, almost predatory smile.
“Perfect…” he murmured. “Just as I wanted.”
He ignored Jason’s angry look.
He ignored the terror in Damian’s eyes.
He ignored even Cassandra’s mechanical expression.
What mattered was what the photo would convey to others:
Stability.
Control.
Victory.
Because now…
Talia was gone.
And they…
were his alone.
Now the new family photo was placed on the wall
If only they had known it was the last
The last before the year 1983
fulfilled its promise
not of glory
but of tragedy….