My First Packet Tracer Lab: Two PCs, One Switch, No Magic
A two-PC switch lab is simple enough to expose the actual sequence behind a successful ping: addressing, ARP, MAC learning and frame forwarding.
ARP
My First Useful Wireshark Capture: ARP Before ICMP
Capturing a simple ping showed that the interesting packet often arrives before ICMP: ARP has to resolve the Layer 2 destination first.