Kitty Pryde had a deep, dark secret.

She wasn't proud of it, and kept it bundled up tight inside of her. She never mentioned it to anyone, but there it sat, deep inside of her, itching to come out. Sometimes the things she did, the ways she acted, hinted at her secret, dared to reveal it, but she always kept a close tab on it.

Kitty Pryde wanted to be President.

Ever since she was a kid, this was her secret dream. She never told anyone, not even Doug or Rachel or Yana. The only person who she had ever, ever, ever told was her father.

She confided in her dad one night when she was 10, that she was most certainly going to be the second female president (Kitty knew a lot about politics and had high hopes for America).

Dad had chuckled one of his warm belly laughs and cuddled her close in a bear hug. "I'm certain you will be too, Kit Kat." He kissed the top of her head and tucked her in.

After that day, he quizzed her on politics and history. Those had never been her favorite subjects, but daddy had always made the games fun. She even delivered a number of rousing speeches to him and a crowd of her stuffed animals (Pooh Bear, Martin the dragon, Gerald the tiger, Pengy...). After every one, he always applauded and cheered, both as himself and as her stuffed animals.

But when she went away to Xavier's, things slowly changed. Dad had less time to listen to speeches, Kurt didn't know much about American politics aside from mutant oppression, and there was no student body president at the Academy. Kitty tucked her dream back into a silent secret. It rarely made a peep, except when she took those small positions of leadership, roles of importance, stood toe-to-toe with governors and politicians.

But when Peter Quill told her he was the President of Spartax (apparently), she was...

Floored. Flabbergasted. Shocked. Amazed. Jealous?

Yeah, jealous too.

Mostly because of Peter's totally lacsidasical attitude. He didn't want to be President. Didn't know who signed him up for the job. Didn't know how he got elected.

How did he not know?

Kitty had to remind herself jealous was pretty standard, especially in a situation like this, where your significant other got your dream job. She had to remind herself that Peter didn't know that being President was her dream job. And anyway, she wanted to be POTUS, not POS (god, that made it sound like a computerized cash register system).

And if Spartax apparently had no institution in place that enforced the idea that people elected to office had to be willing participants, and not just some schmuck off the street, was it really the job either of them wanted? (Maybe he won by a write-in vote? That seemed wildly outlandish, but Peter was a pretty wildly outlandish guy.)

She would talk to Peter about it. They'd find out what was going on together. Her wanting to be President aside, it wasn't the right fit for Peter, and something about it seemed awful fishy...

The Presidency of Spartax seemed a lot more like the figurehead of an oligarchy than an actual democracy.

And that just didn't sit right with Kitty Pryde.