Min-Ji never thought she'd be the one to be the talk of the school again.

Okay, maybe that had been a little bit of an exaggeration, but she catches a few people, who'd probably heard the spread rumors about her being in the hospital, staring at her as she walked past them to get to her classes. The eyes on her were weird. She thought about telling them off a few times, the famous saying "take a picture, it'll last longer" comes to mind, but it would just be a waste of her time and energy. She just doesn't understand how her brother deals with this every day or why he would even want to deal with this crap.

The last time people were giving her looks like this was back when ...

Her thoughts trail off as she shifts her limp leg, the movement a part of her at this point. She shakes the thought away, and continues placing her textbooks in her locker, gathering up her pink and purple notebooks she'd left inside for her next classes, and placing them in her pink gym bag.

"Hey, Min-Ji, heard you were back!" Peter greets her enthusiastically as if they were best friends. He's the first to approach her since she's arrived, and she and her brother parted ways as soon as they came back.

The fact that he's standing in front of her, smiling like nothing happened between them is mind boggling to her. Maybe ... maybe the interaction they had before she got sick had been in her imagination after all.

"Yeah," Min-Ji smiles politely, but she's still uncomfortable around him. He looks as if he wants to give her a hug, but he's holding himself back. "seems like news travels fast around here."

She leans to her side, and glares at the girls behind Peter who'd glanced over at them talking, and the group had the decency to scurry away. Peter just barely notices the girls leaving, befuddled.

"Somehow I get this weird feeling it was my fault," Peter admits.

"Why?" She's baffled by his way of thinking. "I'm the idiot here."

"I don't see how getting sick enough for a hospital visit makes you an idiot," Peter says, baffled.

"It ruined my perfect attendance record," Min-Ji says.

"I didn't think you actually cared about perfect attendance," Peter says. His lips twitch as he fights back a smile.

"Eh, I really don't," Min-Ji agrees. Awkward silence. They're both shuffling, lost in thought, wondering how they both got into this position. "Hope you're ready for P.E."

"I'm really not," Peter sighs. "But I guess it's inevitable."

"You like running, right?" Min-Ji asks curiously. "I don't think I've ever seen you break a sweat in that class."

"I thought you didn't notice much," Peter teases, and she stammers, caught off guard. "Or didn't know I existed, at least."

"MJ!" She shouts, startling him a bit. "I think I hear MJ calling for me. See you at PE, Parker!"

She leaves Peter standing there in the hallway, heart hammering in her chest as she did so, knowing fully well that MJ wasn't even around.

Min-Ji hates PE with a burning passion, but not for the same reasons people usually hate it. Because of her injured leg, she has to take it easy while doing track runs, and the special occasions where they're allowed to dance. She watches her fellow classmates huff and puff, faces bright red, and hair messed up as they run a mile around the track. The only real kick she gets out of this is watching Flash and her little brother suffer a little, not that she would admit it out loud.

But this time she'd managed to convince Coach Wilson to let her run with the class just to see if she could still handle it. The teacher had protested, knowing about her injury, but at her persistence, tells her to stay close to her friends, which she agrees to.

She'd missed this; the feeling of running. She doesn't feel the pain in her leg yet surprisingly, pumped up from adrenaline as her arms waved with her movement.

A flash of bright light in her mind startles her enough to stop her fully in her tracks, and someone slams into her from behind, knocking them both over onto the gym floor. The tall, red haired girl that had knocked into her apologizes profoundly, cheeks flushed, but Min-Ji's not fully paying attention, dismissing the apology with a calm, "don't worry about it." as she inwardly panics about the bright red glows she's seeing around a few people.She sends a quick "I'm fine" glance at Min-Jun who's already rushing towards them, with worry in his brown eyes, and stops at her glance. Other than that, there's dead silence around them.

"Wow, that's embarrassing," Flash announces tactfully.If looks could kill, Min-Jun would have set him on fire right then and there by the glare he gives Flash. There's a few quiet murmurs of agreement, and half-hearted laughs, however.

"No one asked your opinion, Flash," Michelle speaks up, and Flash raises his hands up, tossing her a "just sayin'" kind of look as he walks over to his group of friends.

The red glow is back around only certain people in the gym and it's linking her back to Peter, who's standing with Ned and also staring at them with worry. Ned's waving a hand in front of Peter's face, to tease him, she supposes as friends often do. Her cheeks burn from embarrassment as she and Peter catch each others' gaze, and she looks away.

"Why don't ... why don't we just pair you kids up and do crunches instead?" Coach Wilson breaks the awkward silence with a clear of his throat. And everyone immediately shuffles about to get the mats that were tucked away in the storage closet ready for crunches.

Min-Ji wordlessly lets MJ help her up to her feet. MJ places Min-Ji's arm over her shoulder, and the two girls limp over to the benches.

"You alright?" Min-Ji asks the tall girl who's nursing her left arm, rolling it back and forth nearby.

The girl stares at her with surprise, before smiling meekly, "I'm fine," she says, nodding. "Thanks. Are you okay though?"

"I'm fine, don't worry about it, okay? I mean it!" Min-Ji repeats herself, returning the smile. The girl nods again, before heading over to a group of three girls who were waiting for her, who she swears were staring at her and Peter as they talked that same morning.

"You totally wanted to flip him off, didn't you?" Min-Ji snickers under her breath at MJ, who still has her arm over her friend's shoulders.

"You have no idea," MJ agrees with a snort. "I could have, but I didn't want to get detention again for crude behavior."

"Right, right."

"Are you really okay?" Michelle frowns.

"Fine," Min-Ji mumbles as she her already injured leg. It's burning, but her pride really wouldn't allow her to ask for help.

Yeah, she definitely hates that phrase. If there's a phrase she could erase out of existence, it would be the question, "Are you okay?"

"Uh, that fall says otherwise," Michelle points out.

"I'm fine, MJ," Min-Ji raises her voice slightly enough that Michelle backs away, arms raised up in surrender.

"Okay, was just asking," MJ says.

"I know," and now she feels guilty for shouting. "Sorry."

"Hey, wasn't me who embarrassed myself in front of everyone," Michelle shrugs as she takes a seat next to her.

"Harsh, but whatever," Min-Ji shrugs, fully used to the girl's blunt honesty.

"Uh, heads up, princess is approaching," Michelle says.

Min-Ji's brow arches as she follows her best friends' gaze over to where a pretty, dark skinned girl with her hair up in a ponytail is slowly approaching them with her blonde-haired, blue eyed friend that she remembers seeing on television doing the morning announcements for their school every day. Those two were the epitome of Disney Princesses meets Mean Girls, only they weren't truly mean girls, because they were honestly nice to everyone.

"Hi, Minnie!" The dark skinned girl greets them with a bright smile. "Hi, MJ!"

"Hey, Liz," Min-Ji greets the girl with hesitance, less enthusiasm. Her friend only waves awkwardly and keeps her eye glued to her iPhone. "Hey, Betty."

"Hey," Betty grins. "Mind if we sit with you?"

"Go ahead, free country and all," Min-Ji says, slightly confused as she hasn't spoken to Liz or Betty since freshman year, and scoots over for the two girls to join them.

There's a few moments of awkward silence as the girls settle down. Michelle is staring at them both with caution, and shares a quiet look with Min-Ji before placing her earbuds in that she had tucked underneath her gym shirt.

"How have you been feeling, we heard you were in the hospital for a few days?" Liz asks politely.

"Great ... fantastic ... I'm thrilled to be back at this hell hole people call school," Min-Ji says, and their faces light up despite her sarcasm.

"There's the Minnie we all know and love," Betty says brightly, mocking a baby voice, and pinches Min-Ji's cheeks.

She swats Betty's hand away, and gives the blonde haired girl a half-hearted glare. Betty's acting as if they were best friends their whole lives when, in reality, they really weren't.

"Uh, what really brings you guys over here?" Min-Ji asks awkwardly.

"Um," Liz bites her lip, a nervous habit, Min-Ji supposes. "I actually wanted to invite you and MJ to the party I'm having this weekend."

"This isn't some sort of pity party, is it?" Min-Ji asks, frowning. "Because if it is, I'm not going. No offense."

"None taken," Liz agrees. "I was actually going to ask you at lunch, but then I remembered we had PE together."

"I don't know," Min-Ji replies honestly. She's never been the partying mood type. "I'll have to talk to MJ about it."

"Yeah, of course," Liz smiles. "Just letting you know ahead of time, you're both welcome. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure thing, thanks, Liz," Min-Ji says.

"Anytime!"

And that's that. Liz and Betty were still sitting with them, talking to each other about latest fashion trends that Min-Ji might have overheard carefully. Although she started tuning it out as soon as they started talking about which Avenger they'd want to marry.

"Heads up, on your left," MJ whispers.

Min-Ji frowns at her friend, before turning slightly to where MJ is pointing besides her. Peter is helping Ned with his crunches, and his focus is on them. His eyes widen, and he looks away, pretending that he didn't get caught staring at them.

"I swear that boy has some sort of crush on you," MJ scoffs, "he's been staring for a least five minutes."

"What if you were wrong and he was actually staring at you?" Min-ji asks, raising her brow.

"Psh, me and Peter?" MJ snorts. "Like that'll ever happen."

"You're the one that's stalking him, not me, MJ," Min-Ji retorts, crossing her arms and legs as she leans back on the stairs.

"I do not stalk him," MJ protests. At Min-Ji's skeptical look sent her way, she sighs heavily, "Apparently he knows Captain America, but I only know that because I was sitting right behind him, which was not my full intention, by the way, and weirdly enough, nobody else seemed to hear him."

"Okay, why does he know Captain America?" Min-Ji asks. Truthfully, she really is curious about this. How did Peter know Captain America? Did he accidentally get in a huge fight and Captain America saved him from it? Wasn't Captain America hard to get a hold of? And apparently some sort of war criminal according to Coach Wilson?

"Not sure, he was whispering it over to Ned when we were watching the Captain America video," MJ says.

"Hah, see? You so do stalk him!" Min-Ji laughs at her friends' soft "damn, foiled again,"and shoe stomp.

Liz and Betty's conversation about Spiderman catches her attention, especially the way the two swoon over his name.

"You know Spiderman?" Min-Ji can't help but interrupt them, also curious about the new superhero usually jumping from building to building around the city.

"Not really," Liz says embarrassed by her friends soft "oohs!" and playful nudges. "but I've seen what he looks like in person. I honestly want him to crash onto my roof."

Min-Ji raises a brow, but doesn't judge, since she's had a crush on Iron Man before.

"Peter knows Spiderman!" Ned's nervous voice carries throughout the gym, loud enough to get both the group's attention, and the gym teacher's. Peter's throwing a death glare Ned's way, who's oblivious as all eyes are on them now. It's so silent you can hear a pen drop.

"He knows Spiderman too?" Min-Ji whispers to her friend.

"Apparently," Michelle says, in a way not trying to show her surprise, but Min-Ji knows her well enough that she is.

"Yeah, like the way Coach Wilson and Captain America are friends?" Flash scoffs in disbelief. Min-Ji rolls her eyes, sharing a knowing look with Michelle.

"Well, I don't know him, know him," Peter laughs nervously, shrugging. "I met him through the ... Stark internship. Which I'm not supposed to talk about ... it!"

And now she's a bit jealous that he gets to work with Tony Stark, although she is unaware that the billionaire was giving out internships in the first place. Actually, now that she thought about it a bit more, how did one work with Tony Stark?

"Well, maybe you should invite him over to Liz's party," Flash says in a way that he's clearly up to no good. Min-Ji frowns at him.

"Yeah," Liz smiles, "I'm having people over tonight, you're more than welcome to come over."

"Really?" Peter looks hopeful, and a little live struck."To the party?"

"Yeah, it's gonna be dope," Flash says.

"I'm going to the party, by the way," Michelle says, bringing her out of their conversation as she turns to look back at the curly haired girl who only had one of her earbuds in her ear.

"Not a stalker, huh?" Min-Ji teases, and laughs at the glare sent her way. "Kidding, kidding."

The bell rings, signaling the end of class, and everyone gets up to leave, and she catches sight of Peter talking frantically over to Ned. She doesnt know how she knows this, but she's aware that he and Flash have some sort of beef. Then again, Flash has beef with everyone except for Liz, Min-Jun, and Betty. Still ... she didn't like that look in Flash's eyes.

Huh ... maybe she'll see Peter Parker at the same party after all.