Chapter Text
When Paige Forthman had majored in aerospace engineering in college, she didn’t give two shits about planes. She was there for space travel and that was that. But after a few years working in a windowless office surrounded by guys with no social skills and a tendency to mansplain to someone with a PhD, she needed a break. One of her supervisors had noticed this and left a flier on her desk as the day was coming to a close. First off, who actually printed fliers these days? A quick glance told her the US Military did, which actually wasn’t all that surprising. Reading further down the paper she took in the “ENGINEERS WANTED” headline and two horrible 90’s clip art of planes. The military needed to up its marketing game. The position was at a Naval base in San Diego, something called the Fighter Weapons School. Sure she had worked on planes for the military before, but it was never full time on base. Thinking more she realized needed a change and here was one only a few hours away from where she lived now. Couldn’t hurt right?
Paige sent in her application for the position the next day and got a call less than three hours later with an offer for the position. She strolled into her supervisor's office to tell him she was taking some leave, god knows she hadn’t used any of her vacation days, and the job at the base was only for a few months. He just smiled and wished her well, his pilot's jacket hidden in the closet, the Top Gun badge illuminated through the crack in the door.
The drive to Fightertown was long and Paige was ready to crash into whatever crappy accommodations she had been given the second she stepped through the threshold. Once she had been cleared at the gate to base, she hauled her bag out of the beat up minivan she drove (don’t knock it till you try it) and made her way into the apartment. It was nice enough, definitely having housed its fair share of occupants over the years, but in livable condition. Certainly better looking than some of the apartments she had looked at by JPL and this one was free instead of $2000 a month.
She entered the bedroom and went down face first on the bed, glad that it was already made up, and slept like a rock until her alarm woke her up at a god awful 3:30 in the morning. Apparently pilots got started early, which means the engineers had to be there before the sun even peeked over the horizon. She threw on some work clothes, things that already had stains from some 15 odd years of projects and made her way out to the hanger, regretting she hadn’t toured the place in the daylight.
She finally found some kindred souls in one of the hangars and figured if this wasn’t her new team, they could help direct her to where she was supposed to go.
“Hey y’all! I’m looking for Jerry Bruns, can you point me to him? It’s my first day on the job and I’m a little turned around”
A large, bespectacled man of about 60 took a glance at her and broke out a grin that was so infectious she found herself instantly at ease.
“You found me! You must be Ms. Forthman, pleasure to meet ya. How was the trip in?”
That launched Paige into a tale of highways and tractor trailers and folks driving 40 over the speed limit that had everyone entertained. No one in the crew looked a day younger than 50 and all were men, but she quickly learned that these guys knew what they were doing and did it well, and never thought twice about showing her the ropes.
Paige was thoroughly enjoying the sunshine and the chance to get her hands on some fine pieces of machinery, but Jerry and the crew evidently thought she wasn’t enjoying herself enough.
“You gotta get out there and meet some kids your own age!” Jose exclaimed one night as they poured over work plans with freshly brewed coffee and a pack of store bought donuts.
Paige huffed a laugh as she looks up from some repair forms for an F-18,
“There aren’t “kids my age” Jose, I’m nearly 30.”
The older mechanic just waved his hand and took a sip out of his steaming mug, “Ah, you know what I mean. You should be making friends and having a good time while you have the chance.”
“I am making friends and having a good time! What’s more fun than sitting out here at 11:00 PM with you all?”
That statement elicited a groan from just about every old fart in the room, of which there were quite a few. All the planes were scheduled for in-depth maintenance next week, and it had to be precisely planned to get them back out on the runway ASAP. They had all been working overtime and consuming more sugary substances than any man or woman should.
Phil piped up from across the room, “C’mon Paige, you don’t want to be hanging around us geezers when there’s prime aviator pickings down at The Hard Deck.” The other guys grumbled begrudgingly in agreement, the mechanics and the aviators had a bit of a rivalry, though Paige wasn’t sure the pilots were aware of this fact. It mostly stemmed from busted up planes being thrown back at them while pilots went off to have fun at day’s end.
She shook her and snorted at Phil’s comment, “I’d much rather be here than have to sit through a pilot explaining how an airplane works to a literal airplane doctor. Been there, done that, the sex wasn’t worth the half hour conversation.”
That got a reaction out of her guys, with big belly laughs and wolf whistles coming at her from all directions. She joined in, reminiscing on some not so great past exploits, all in all, she hadn’t had much luck in the “intimate relationships” category.
Finally Jerry addressed her with that fatherly sternness that always made her sit up straighter and listen in.
“Kid, you got a whole life ahead of you, but you can’t waste it all working 24 hours a day. Go out and forget about it all for a while. The Hard Deck’s a good joint, especially since Penny Benjamin fixed up a few years ago. You barely even stick to the chairs anymore.”
She couldn’t really ignore that, and it would be nice to meet Penny, she had barely talked to any other woman here, so she put on her best annoyed face and let out an exaggerated heavy sigh.
“Okay, you guys win, I’ll go.”
Cheers erupted around her and she laughed at how excited these grown men were for her to go out to a bar. She was a little nervous about joining the crew at first, but now she had like 6 adoptive dads/uncles, and working with them had been a dream.