Acceptance
Old habits
Despite whatever Bruce claimed, it did not actually take long for him to come around. Things did quickly return to a very close approximation of how they had been. There were more bitter and flippant remarks, but those fell away too, after some time. It was hard to stay mad, surrounded by so many things that he remembered, and with Anthony behaving like his long-time, over protective, warm and genuine friend. Currently the one difference was that, towards him, Anthony was less than his perfectly confident self, making him less abrasive. Anthony took care of him as best he could, or at least made sure he was taking care of himself, and they had slowly fallen into old habits again, before picking up some new ones too. Bruce now had no trepidation about openly criticizing him, more often than not, showing more concern for Anthony than he intended. Anthony did not seem to mind this change at all. In fact, he seemed to take great comfort from it, and always entertained his suggestions, far more than he ever used to.
Bruce was also right. They had both changed. Both their lives were very different, and far emptier. Neither of them seemed to really have anyone left on earth that they were close to, so they ended up spending most of their time in the lab, or shop, doing what engineers do best. It was hard not to get close to someone who he was spending every day with and even harder to stay angry with him when he seemed to hold it as so very important to make him happy. The friendly courting-like behaviour was strange and somewhat repelling at first, because some part of him was still trying to be angry, but the harder Anthony tried to get him to spend time with him, the more he felt reassured that he cared about him after all. Weeks passed this way, turning into months; a short stay turning into some unspoken understanding that Bruce had moved in; tense reluctance melting slowly into genial companionship. Before too long Bruce had unconsciously started calling Anthony his friend again, seeming to forget his lack of trust in favour of having his friend back.
Anthony was happy. He still felt guilty over how things had gone; that he had tried to force such a decision on Bruce and had messed it up so badly. Bruce seemed to be happy though, having eventually let go of his passive-aggressive demeanour and warming up, now spending all of his time with Anthony, who had been very lonely before then. He had his friend back and knew he was safe, so he was happy; maybe not entirely satisfied with how each of their lives were overall, but content enough that he did not really want to change anything. They had both gone through so much over the span of a couple lives, and he felt better having someone to talk to who understood all the crazy things they had been through; and he thought Bruce did too.