the protection of lena oxton.
talon had long considered lena oxton to be one of their targets of highest priority, though they had no intention of simply killing her. her unique condition of chronal dissassociation -- the only known instance of its kind -- made her an incredibly valuable potential asset for talon, particularly for purposes of use as a human weapon. overwatch had already partially succeeded in doing so in a sense, but talon would be able to push the limits of this condition even further.
furthermore, she had displayed on numerous occasions that she was capable of foiling -- or nearly foiling -- several talon missions of utmost importance, including ones headed by one of their most valuable and talented operatives: widowmaker.
she was a threat that needed to be dealt with, and talon desired her capabilities for their own purposes. were they to get their hands on her, it would give them an advantage of unimaginable proportion, simultaneously eliminating a major thorn in their side all the while -- two birds with one stone.
widowmaker has been aware for some time now that not only did talon wish to take lena for these purposes, but that in order to do so they intended to use a similar approach to the one they used on herself all of those years ago: subjection to severe, constant psychological torture and behavioral conditioning, as well as physiological augmentation and countless surgical operations. efforts together that, combined, would shatter lena’s will and sense of identity.
just as had been done to amélie lacroix.
she had always promised herself she’d never let it happen to anyone else, regardless of who it was. in addition to this, however, she eventually comes to grow extremely close to lena, emotionally and physically.
therefore the protection of her becomes her highest priority, an obligation of incredible importance.
her current position in talon is not of the highest rank, but it is also far from the lowest. she is awarded considerable privileges and access to a wealth of information within the organization. close relationships with certain council members also means that she is sometimes given special treatment, often learning of what is spoken amongst the council despite not being a direct member.
thus she is aware of many of talon’s plans and objectives, as well as future missions -- this is also largely because she is frequently dispatched to enforce them.
in addition to the information of the council, she and sombra maintain good working relations (widowmaker thinks highly of her in comparison to her other colleagues), and she will help her when asked, especially in exchange for information that even talon does not have access to. widowmaker usually has no issue assisting sombra with her personal agenda, as she holds no personal feelings of loyalty to talon or their mission. she will, however, hesitate if sombra’s plans involve jeopardizing her own objectives, putting her at risk for punishment by her superiors (such as the volskaya incident).
however, in general, her internal connections to talon and their leadership, as well as sombra, give widowmaker a major advantage: she is able to learn of any and all plans to “retrieve” lena oxton, and thwart them quickly, either directly or indirectly, before they are allowed to occur.
in the case of indirect interference, her actions may range from as mild as switching out faulty weapons in the armory and creating technological issues in vital equipment, to severe, in which case she sometimes takes direct action and kills the deployed agents herself. if she does this, it is usually because she is left with no alternative option. widowmaker will typically disguise herself, corner them en route once they have dismembarked the aircraft (as she has access to the mission plans), and kill them each, always with a knife as the crime must not be traced back to her rifle. if she needs to resort to this method, it is almost always an incredibly risky undertaking, as the deployed agents are usually much stronger men who could easily overpower her and reveal her identity were she to make any wrong moves. however, as a result of her training, she is very skilled with both sharp weapons and hand to hand combat, focusing more on evasive techniques than inflicting real damage (as she is extremely weak physically).
once the agents are dead, she must dispose of the evidence, aiming to make their deaths look like disappearances. if they are expendable grunts, talon wouldn’t particularly care about their deaths, but because of the critical importance of lena oxton’s retrieval, these deployed agents are typically higher ranked colleagues of widowmaker, either at her ranking or near it. the loss of these agents is typically enough for talon to give up on lena’s retrieval for a long while, reassessing their approach. they always try again, but when they do, widowmaker will always be one step ahead.
in the case of direct interference, it is often because talon has sent widowmaker herself to deal with the problem of lena oxton, specifically requesting that she subdue her and bring her back to talon’s base. despite her obvious disadvantage as a sniper, widowmaker has ironically come the closest out of any of their agents to making what they consider to be “progress” in her retrieval. however, little does talon know that widowmaker intentionally saved her life that night at kings row by deliberately throwing her over the edge of the building, damaging her accelerator yet saving her from talon when she saw the approach of her return aircraft.
of course, widowmaker never “succeeds” on any of these retrieval missions, because she has no intention of completing them. by this point, she and lena have already begun to develop a physical relationship, and her protectiveness over her grows much stronger.
talon knows that lena has the advantage over widow in the field, but still they always ask what happened and why she continues to fail. widowmaker tells them a variety of practiced lies, ranging from that she was too fast, that she disappeared, that she ran after her so quickly she could have coded in the field, placing her at risk of death. she is punished every time she lets her go, worsening in severity and duration the longer she continues.
despite this, widowmaker always refuses to comply.
initially, she makes it a priority for lena to never find out she protects her and suffers for it, not wanting to worry her -- however, she does warn her verbally to be very careful wherever she goes, explicitly telling her not to let her guard down or go to places alone that are empty of people. such a place is exactly how she was taken by talon herself.
her rational, founded fear of something happening to lena eventually worsens into debilitating, paranoid delusions, often to the point where she no longer trusts anyone else in her life, terrified that they may be conspiring with talon to take her .
