Claims are now closed. Second claims will open on Sept 15, 2024 at 12 noon ET

Creators, please take this time to read over the summaries and compile your wish list for the day of claiming. You will need to return to this post September 14 after 7:00 AM EDT ("What time is that for me?") to submit your claims list and make it all official. Please check the time converter or this countdown to be sure when claims begin for your timezone.



This is the CLAIMS phase of the Big Bang, and where the artists come in! 6 fantastic drafts have been submitted and are awaiting artists to claim them.

By claiming a story, you assert that you will collaborate with your writer(s) to produce a new SteveTony fanwork to accompany their story when posting begins in November. There is no penalty-free dropping out after this point.

You do not need to be a member of the cap_ironman community or have a Dreamwidth account to participate in claims. Anonymous comments are enabled. Commenting will open when the claiming phase begins.

Your schedule:

• October: Creators work on their piece(s), writers finish their fics
• Saturday, October 19th: Teams select their November posting dates
• November: BB entries are posted throughout the month

A recap on some of the main rules:

• Please remember to read through our General Event Policies and the Big Bang Event Guidelines for all participants, as well as the Guidelines for Claiming Creators for this year’s challenge before claiming.


• Any story is eligible to be claimed if the creator is planning to do an accompanying fanvid or traditional or digital artwork


• Creators wanting to create an accompanying fanmix with cover art, manips or gifs can only claim stories where the writer has OPTED INTO receiving these art forms.


• In addition to a new accompanying fanwork, claiming creators will be required to create a banner for their team.


• This is a collaborative challenge; you are expected to keep in touch with your team for the duration of the challenge. You must coordinate with your partner during the posting period.


• All participants must be 18 or older.

Claiming:
To claim a story on Saturday, September 14, you will need to leave a comment with the following information (copy and paste in your own details):


<strong>Username(s) including site name:</strong> [This is how we, and your partner, will address you; please use one of your primary pseuds] <br/> <strong>Email:</strong> [This is the address we will use to contact you and give to your partner, so please make sure it is one which you check frequently.]<br/> <strong>Discord Handle:</strong> [This is optional]<br/> <strong>Choice 1:</strong> [FIC CODE NAME, for example BRAVO.]<br/> <strong>Choice 2:</strong><br/> <strong>Choice 3:</strong><br/> [Repeat for all choices. Please make sure you only put down fics that you are happy to produce art for as your options, choose as few or many as you like.]

You can list as many code names as you are genuinely happy to work with. Two or three options are recommended as we cannot guarantee that you will get your first choice.

• Claims will be made on a first-come, first-served basis and you will be assigned the first option that is still available on your list.


• Initially, you may only claim once, and you will be assigned a single story. We will announce if/when double claims begin.


• If the claim time is inconvenient for you, we encourage you to find someone to proxy claim for you. Your proxy comments on the claims post instead of you, providing your username, email and claims following the template above. You can email the mod team for assistance in finding a proxy.


• If you have a specific concern and would like the mods to vet a story draft before you make your choices, please let us know at [email protected] before claims begin.

Writers, remember that claiming creators have different schedules and timezones, and that though we try to accommodate everyone, your fic may not be claimed in the first few hours. Please be patient, and don’t look at claims as a competition This challenge is about pairing like-minded creators who will work together to produce exciting new Steve/Tony content; sometimes it takes a while for the right person to come along!

When matching is complete, we will send out emails to connect teams, along with further instructions.

Please don't contact your partner until you receive the mod connection email. Please reply directly to the email letting mods know that you received it. After this point, team members are responsible for keeping in touch with each other for the duration of the challenge.

Send any questions to [email protected], especially if we've made a mistake with your entry.

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List of Available Summaries

Alpha

Universe: MCU
Genre: Historical Drama (1600s)
Warnings: Religious/Atheist Themes, Period-Typical Homophobia
Rating: mature
Summary:

In the age of Galilei's discoveries, Tony is fascinated by the prospect of a bigger universe. Steve is one of the conservatives trying to keep the old world view alive. Their new favorite subject is dragging each other's opinions through the mud in their poems. Tony is more than happy to feed into this feud. Because he hates Rogers. Hates his poetry, his sharp wit, his handsome smile, his – Oh, wait.

Story excerpt:

Tony didn't look up from his papers when a basket of croissants appeared on the desk in front of him, acknowledging Jarvis with a distracted hum as his eyes slid across the page, taking in the same words once again.

“Good morning, Sir. Talkative as always, I see.”

Tony rolled his eyes, holding out his hand for the cup of coffee he knew would be waiting. “Good morning to you as well, Jarvis.”

---

Beta

Universe: MCU
Genre: Romance
Characters/pairings other than Steve/Tony: Characters: Pepper, Nebula, Rhodey (briefly). Peter shows up in Tony's nightmares.
Pairings: Past Tony/Pepper - they've been on and off for the past two years. Tony attempts at rekindling one last time, but they permanently break up (amicably) in the fic before Tony and Steve get together.
Warnings: - mentions of grief, trauma and survivor's guilt.
- alcohol abuse/drinking as a coping mechanism.
- canonical character deaths.
- nightmares about Peter's death.
- sex scene with a lot of feelings in the end, probably vanilla, probably bottom Tony.
-discussion of Civil War (where Steve and Tony actually communicate about it).
Rating: Explicit
Opt-ins: manip, fanmix, or gif
Summary:

When Tony is stranded in space he's convinced that he's going to die there, so he records a goodbye message to Steve, thinking that this is the only closure he will ever get. However he gets rescued and brought back to Earth, so he's forced to face his feelings for Steve again - the good and the bad ones, as well as his failed relationship with Pepper, and his grief and trauma caused by the events of Infinity War.

Story excerpt:

He starts the recording. Glowing eyes scan him again, bathing his face in white light.
Tony squints a little as the light hurts his eyes, and tries to sit up straighter.
"Hey, Cap—" the old nickname slips out naturally, as if Tony had never stopped calling Steve that, and the pang of longing that comes with it makes his chest ache. What he and Steve had — whatever it is that they had — is long gone now. The grief Tony still feels is a weight he's been carrying with him for the past two years. A weight he's been unable to let go of.
Or maybe unwilling would be a more fitting word for it.

---

Charlie

Universe: MCU
Genre: Rivals to Lovers, Disaster
Characters/pairings other than Steve/Tony: Natasha, Clint, Sam, Bruce, Thor
Warnings: none
Rating: explicit
Opt-ins: manip, fanmix, or gif
Summary:

Summary: Storm chaser Steve lost Bucky and five years of his life to a tornado he wasn't prepared for. So when Sam asks him to get back into the game for science, Steve's hesitant. That hesitancy begins to disappear when he meets a rich and rival storm chaser, Tony. He hates Tony until he discovers there's more than meets the eye about his new acquaintance. Together they take on a new project and might just save some lives along the way.

A Twisters AU

Featuring flannel shirts, PTSD, car chases, and popular culture level of understanding about tornadoes.

Story excerpt:

That earns Steve a wider grin from Stark before Stark says, "What can I say, I like a little style with my substance."

Steve scoffs and sizes him up. "And where are you hiding that?"

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Delta

Universe: 616
Genre: techno-gothic, action/adventure, erotica, tragedy
Characters/pairings other than Steve/Tony: past hydra!steve/tony
Warnings: - past rape/non-con between hydra!steve and tony, possibly a graphic flashback (there is no non-con between steve and tony)
- Passive suicidal ideation for steve, self-harm
- Graphic depictions of violence
- Torture in which hydra!steve graphically tortures tony for fun and to bait steve
- Body horror for tony losing an eye
- possible MCD
Rating: explicit
Summary:

Steve has a bike, a pack of camels, and a lifetime of sins to outrun. Confronted with the debris field left by his fascist double, he intends to ride out the storm on the road: unnoticed, unremarkable.

Tony’s won’t let him go alone. He’s barely alive after his fight with Captain Marvel, clawing his way back to stability in a body he understands less every day.

With Steve’s reputation in shreds and Tony’s resources gone, all they have is each other on the great American road trip from hell. Can Tony save Steve from succumbing to the worst version of himself? Are they really better at each other’s side? And is someone following them?

Story excerpt:

Tony makes him sit. Fishes out their last water bottle from the saddlebag. Steve won’t take it until Tony closes his hand around the bottle. Tony watches the line of his throat move, tries to remember the last time he’s seen Steve with stubble. Steve perches on the saddle with this awful vacant look.

“Steve,” Tony says, and he finishes Steve’s bottle.

“Do you think they’d give me the death penalty,” Steve says quietly. “If I went back.”

“No. Steve,” Tony breathes. “Come on. We know who did this.”

That’s the thing that makes Steve shut down. Tony can see it happening, sees whatever war is going on in Steve’s head surface and then settle, like Steve is absorbing a shockwave. He sways and Tony’s heart skips half a beat. Steve doesn’t do this, Steve doesn’t lose his faith, at worst he mopes for a little bit and then puts on his armor and grabs his shield and gets up to do it again. Like clockwork.

“I wish you’d all left me there,” Steve says.

---

Echo

Universe: 616
Genre: Speculative/Sci-Fi, Drama, Character Study
Characters/pairings other than Steve/Tony: AI Tony/Tony (prominent throughout the fic, self-cest intimacy involving armor kink, etc.), AI Tony/Steve/Tony (endgame with a complicated precursor triangle), Carol/Rhodey/Tony (friends with benefits who are emotionally close but not romantic)
Warnings: gender dysphoria (from two trans characters in different ways), self-cest (AI tony/tony), body horror (of the existential crisis kind and of the physical transhumanist kind), bdsm elements with some bloodplay and breathplay, past parental abuse, alcoholism, depression, angst, some self-harm elements, unequal power dynamics, smoking, dehumanization (humans to an AI, humans to themselves), ambiguous/open ending, major character transformation of self into a different being
Rating: explicit
Summary:

When Tony first creates an AI copy of himself, he does it on a time crunch, without thinking about the code's longevity. But, when Tony hacks himself and Rhodey back to life following the superhero Civil War II, he comes face to his own digital face; a face that has been walking around, saving the world, building a life that is not Tony’s.

The closer Tony gets to AI Tony, the more unsure Tony is that the AI is even his anymore, instead of something — someone else entirely — and the more sure he is, that these strange, new changes are echoing through Tony himself, all the way to Steve, on the other end of the country.

Story excerpt:

1.
No one is looking at Tony, but the looks Jocasta shares with Friday when they think he’s not watching are enough to make Tony feel like a fourth wheel covered in micro-plastic. As Jocasta deliberately doesn’t watch him, he assesses the places she lingers her specs instead: right where Tony knows she knows his defunct ports are — right where his tendons heat and stretch every time he straps on a piece of armor. There’s an anvil sinking slowly through the putty of his chest. There’s a cavity that the metal of Tony’s hand keeps getting stuck on while he reviews his own code for the life pod; the sub-tree for the engram he printed using his own brain waves.
He lingers over it, thumbing through the conversion of himself from oxygen and carbon to binary. Flipping to the window with Rhodey’s own layout, Tony’s draws his finger over the formulas, the functions, all too aware of his heart sitting raw on his tongue.
-
-
2.
“Why won’t you give Tony . . .” Steve adjusts his hands on the railing, squeezes them together. Then, he peels them apart to dig into his pocket and pull out a cheap Tigra-themed zippo and a pack of Marlboros. He lights up, quick and snappy as clapping a shield return in his gloved palm.
“Give Tony what?” Tony asks, after Steve’s taken a mildly frantic toke or three.

---

Foxtrot

Universe: MCU
Genre: romance, fluff
Characters/pairings other than Steve/Tony: Bucky/Nat, Maya Hansen/Tony, Jarvis (human), Harley, Ana, Peggy Carter, Maya Hansen. POV Characters are Steve, Tony and Peter
Warnings: Features a lot of shockingly poor decision making - past and present
Rating: teen
Opt-ins: manip, fanmix, or gif
Summary:

A Parent Trap AU -- Peter and Harley meet in a camp and discover that they are twins then they switch places to get to know Steve and Tony. Things are fine until Peter finds out that Tony is engaged to Maya Hansen and Harley tells him he has to stop the engagement. Meanwhile Steve and Tony find themselves thinking about each other and their kids and revisiting their regrets over their divorce. You know how this goes.

Story excerpt:

“Oh, I just have Dad,” Peter replied. “It’s been that way forever. Just me and Dad. Dad has a lot of friends but they don’t know about my other dad. Or don’t talk about him.” Peter offered Harley another cookie. “You?”

Harley woofed the cookie down. “I have my Pop, then there’s Jarvis, Pepper, Uncle Jim but he just wants to be called Rhodey, Happy -- I have another dad too. I have one picture -- Pop had it hidden until I begged for it.”

Peter had met people with two dads and two moms before so that wasn’t strange to him. But he hadn’t met another person who had only one picture of their dad or mom, just like he did. “Huh, I have one picture too. Dad put it in a frame for me at home. Ana made a scan for me to take with me.”

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