Not every mage can be trusted.

By Friday, Bucky had unavoidably caught on to what the island was up to. Some previous iterations of this pollen thing had brought with them surreal, feverish dreams of redheads with their faces forever just slightly out of view, but this time --

Well, the redhead had gotten plenty specific.

As had the rest of the details of the dreams.

Guess it showed how much more human he felt, these days? More in tune with his body, with urges that had at one point seemed as lost to time as the rest of him. A faint silver lining.

But the pollen also meant that whatever plans he'd had for seeking Jesse out - not that he'd had many, as evidenced by how he hadn't beelined right to her when he'd returned from Wakanda earlier in the week - were now completely out of the question. She'd made him uncomfortable, the last time they'd talked, but that didn't mean he wanted to make her uncomfortable back. And the pollen, it just felt like it would do exactly that.

So he was just... here.

Hunkered down in the apartment. Out of what he would've called a need for distraction, he'd broken out the record player that a much, much younger version of him had made great use of a long, long time ago when he'd just been a candy store clerk and everything to come had been just a distant, unknowable future. He'd put a record on, and he was on the couch, sipping a glass of whisky that didn't do anything more than his regular beer would have, and yet he'd had the urge to reach for it tonight.

Maybe none of these urges were actually being fueled by a yearning for distraction. Bucky wasn't looking at them too closely, either way. He was humming faintly along to Moonlight Serenade.

And he was feeling like a fool.

[ooc: I have been mostly listening to Glenn Miller today, so this is what you get. Can be open.]