Misunderstanding with PI

[variable]

I've unknowingly and unwillingly managed to anger my current PI so much that he has banned me from lab meetings. Please help me figure out how to patch things up as well as can be.

I applied for a Research Assistant position at a University on a different continent, and got the position knowing that the language differences might cause trouble down the line. My PI hired me while saying that I had a really good chance of getting into the PhD program in his department so I applied before starting the work proper. After months of not hearing anything about my results, with less than 1 month left till the deadline for the second round of admissions, my PI informed me that he can't afford to take me on as a student and has arranged I be admitted in a different department with him as my supervisor. I wasn't thrilled about this arrangement especially since the topic wasn't anything close to what I applied for but I asked for time to give it some thought and look it up more. The following week I was told by my PI I have can accept this project, work as an RA in the other department, or I can go anywhere else for my PhD. Apparently within the same conversation he mentioned submitting my papers to the Faculty soon, and took my lack of comment as my accepting the offer (I have no recollection of this, neither did I ever agree to the proposal). So I contacted another PI within our department whose research interests were close to my own and arranged a meeting. This is where everything went crashing down.... The second PI was willing to take me on and went to my current PI to talk about it, and that is how we found out I was already being enrolled into the program with the other department. My current PI immediately emailed to stop the process and I went in for a meeting with him the same day. I found out then that "since I hadn't out outright voiced a strong objection" he assumed I would take the offer and proceeded on that assumption. I've tried apologizing and explaining that I had not in fact agreed to his proposal and that I was not aware he had started the enrolment process but I ended up being called an idiot and now he is complaining about me to all the other members in our group.

 Any suggestions on how to patch things up or at least for damage control? I really don't want to burn any bridges here 

Thanks!

[fuzzylogician]

What do you want to come out of this? Do you want to work with PI #2 and will s/he still take you on as a student? Or do you want to work with PI #1, and is this even an option? What you do kind of depends on what you want the outcome to be. Seems to me that it'd be better to work with PI #2 and assuming that this means no more lab meetings (or any meetings) with PI #1, you just let it cool for a bit, then find a way to apologize again and blame it on language/communication failures once everyone's calmed down and some time has passed. At the end of the day it's up to your PI to forgive you and move on, if he wants. There isn't much that you can do to take it back.