I believe they resisted reacting too severely for fear of escalation to levels that nobody would be able to control. India’s ego and image on the other hand was badly damaged and it was desperately trying to salvage something to beat their chest about , with less concern for escalation. When India’s provocations became too much, Pakistan declared ‘now you wait for our response’, that response followed, India’s request for deescalation came soon after. Probably fair to say that if that response had come sooner, so would have the ceasefire but hindsight is a luxury you don’t have at the time.
AFAIK, the major damage to India was already done by morning of 7 May.
- Their aircrafts were shot down
- Bde HQs in IOJK were targeted
- Their forward defenses on LOC were vacated and 7 border posts were occupied by PA
First thing to be proud of here is that this major response came only within ~ 3 hours of India's missile strike unlike 2019 where it took a few days to launch a response.
By morning on 7 May, India was already holding press conference in which they mentioned they are ready to de-escalate if Pakistan does so. Foreign countries, esp US, was already in contact with both countries - Pakistan did decide to de-escalate and vacated their border posts by evening on 7 May
On 8 and 9 May, India carried out their drone incursion blaming Pakistan for doing artillery shelling and drone swarms across LOC b/w night of 7/8 - this was vice versa - when Pakistan de-escalated on 7 May, India still wanted to get the last punch in
(because of the damages they had already received).
Pakistan took care of Indian drone incursion, and with no damage to show to their population, on the night of 9 May, India struck Nur Khan AB with BrahMos.
By this time US was back on the hotline with both countries, as India was escalating, but Pakistan denied the US call for no response/de-escalation and then by the early hours of May 10 Op BM was officially launched - F1 and F2, CM400 AKG, Bhuj BrahMos launch site all this happened by morning hours of 10 May.
After this upon India's request ceasefire negotiations were began by noon. During the negotiations, India took advantage again and launched more BrahMos at Pakistan targeting ABs and Kirana Hills. The last BrahMos strike was Bholari AB (which happened mid-afternoon 10 May) a couple of hours later the ceasefire was in effect.
The major damage to India was already done by 7 May (Aircrafts and LOC) - Op BM on 10 May did further damage but AFAIK not of the same extent as on 7 May because Pakistan didn't want to escalate further (India was already using BrahMos which was their last weapon system under Nuclear Threshold)