DISCLAIMER: I don't own FMA, nor do I own Disney. The original idea for a Tangled crossover came from misguidedgost77 (we talked about doing this ages ago. Whoops). Special thanks goes out to Melon Fuhrer, who gave me some more ideas and a bunch of help and encouragement. Thanks, guys!

Tangled

As usual, Winry Rockbell was having one hell of a day.

"Stop! Thief!" the soldiers behind her called out as they chased her through the forest. Winry rolled her eyes and wished they would come up with something more original to say.

She ducked into the undergrowth, using her lean frame to her advantage, and the bulky-suited soldiers had to hack away at the foliage. She grinned, actually cackling a little, and hurried on.

"NEIGHHHHH! (Get your ass back here, you peasant!)" cried a horse, and Winry looked back to see a black mustang pursuing her. She pumped her legs faster, dashing around a tree, but tripped over a root—a stupid, rookie mistake. She plummeted forward and closed her eyes, bracing herself for some sort of colossal impact, but she merely fell through a curtain of ivy and landed on soft grass in some sort of cave. She hurried to the back wall, watching the foliage as she did so. The shadow of the mustang paused at the curtain, sniffing, but then the animal snorted and continued on.

After a few moments, Winry let out a sigh of relief and stood up, though she was careful not to hit her head on the ceiling. She made sure that she still had the gold crown in her satchel, then studied her surroundings, seeing that the cave was actually a tunnel. She followed the tunnel, not wanting to go back out into the woods lest the soldiers were still around, and emerged into a huge, hidden valley, with high rock walls and a cascading waterfall. However, even this great sight was nothing compared to the tower that stood out in the middle of the area.

Winry's blue eyes widened with awe. Her fingers started twitching—she needed to see what was in there, see what sorts of treasures were hidden in the tower. She hurried to the base of the formation, searching for some sort of door, but no such object presented itself to her.

"Some tower this is," she huffed, looking upward. She squinted and noticed a large, open window facing the west, and she grinned before she began looking for footholds in the stone. The climb was a bit tricky, but Winry was more than able to handle it, and soon she was peering into the dark interior of the tower.

"Guess no one's home," she muttered, tiptoeing into the room, but then something collided with the back of her head and she slumped to the floor, unconscious.

There was a frenzied squeaking noise, and a small chameleon scurried next to the girl's face, trying to check if she was okay.

"Get away from her, Alphonse," a boy barked, and the chameleon gave him quite the dirty look before turning back to the girl.

The boy, brandishing a frying pan, scowled and emerged into the light. He wore rather odd black clothes and a red cloak, but his defining features were his golden eyes and his seventy feet of braided golden hair—a sprig of which sprung up from his bangs. He glared with distrust at the unknown girl—he thought it was a girl, at least (Father Gothel had warned him about their alluring figures). He remembered something else his father had warned him about, and he carefully used his frying pan to move the girl's lip so he could check for pointed teeth, but he saw nothing of the sort.

He frowned.

Though Alphonse started squeaking in protest, the boy bent down and grabbed the girl's satchel. He stood up straight and began to rifle through it, but there was only one thing inside: a golden crown.

The boy frowned once more and turned the object over in his hands, studying the intricate detail and the inlaid jewels. Just for the hell of it, he put it on his head and looked to the mirror.

It fit perfectly.

()()()()()

Winry groaned a little as she came to. Her head hurt a lot. She tried to put a hand to her temple, but she couldn't move.

Her eyes flashed open, and she saw that she had been strapped to a chair. Strapped with braided, golden hair.

She started struggling against her bonds. "What the—? Let me go!"

"Meet my demands, and I might," someone said from the shadows, and she thought it sounded like a boy.

She scowled. "I'm not doing it with someone I haven't even seen, asshole, and certainly not with someone who's tied me up with hair."

"… 'It'?" The boy came a little closer, and she was able to make out his outline. He sounded genuinely confused.

Winry raised an eyebrow. "…I won't comment on that." Suddenly a thought crossed her mind, and she began searching frantically, as best as she could. "Where's my satchel?!"

"I hid it," the boy said. "Meet my demands, and you can have it back and you can go free."

Winry frowned and looked around. "It's in that pot, isn't it?"

He paused.

The frying pan was the last thing she saw before she blacked out again.

()()()()()

(Magical time skip.)

()()()()()

Edward looked with distrust at the door. "...I'm not going in there."

Winry rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. "Come on, Blondie. It's just a tavern. Aren't you hungry?"

He wished she would stop calling him that, especially since she was blonde, too. "Well..." Ed glanced at Alphonse, and his stomach growled. "...Okay."

"Good." Winry opened the worn wooden door and motioned for Ed to go inside. The boy nervously gathered up his braided hair and went inside.

The room was full of boisterous men. Most were rather huge, and all were rather smelly. The scent of alcohol hung in the air, and Edward noticed one little old man staggering around as drunk as a skunk.

"YOKI!" someone shouted, and the drunk man stumbled some more and looked around as said someone came up to him and said, "Scar's looking for you. You know he can't call for you. Don't get drunk and wander off."

The drunkard, Yoki, shrugged and smiled; his flushed cheeks shined in the light. Then he promptly spun on his heel—stumbling a little—and wandered back into the crowd. The man sighed.

"Careful there, Blondie," Winry said, pulling Ed away from a rather scary-looking man. "Bump into someone here and it might turn out to be like dropping the soap."

Ed didn't understand, but looked nervous anyway and stuck close to Winry.

The girl walked over to the bartender. "My good sir," she said importantly, "two venison steaks to go."

The bartender raised an eyebrow, then froze. His gaze flickered from Winry's face to the wall, and Ed glanced over to see that the space next to the window was plastered with a few black-and-white posters labeled "WANTED." Winry's face was on each one, but none of the drawings got her nose just right.

"GUYS," the bartender suddenly barked. "IT'S THE FUGITIVE THEY'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR!"

Winry froze, but before she could get her bearings and start for the door or a window, several pairs of hands grabbed her by the arms and legs and pulled her out into the crowd.

"H-hey, hey, guys!" Winry called, her voice quavering as the men fought over who had seen her first and therefore who would get the bounty. "I-I'm not who you're looking for! Honest!"

Edward watched for a moment, frightened, and Alphonse tugged violently on his hair. The boy yelled a little at the pain and gave Al a dirty look, but the chameleon gestured frantically at the scene, and Ed suddenly realized just what was happening.

"Wait!" he called, but no one heard him. He started flailing his frying pan at the edge of the group, but none of his hits made any real impact on the men—most had some sort of armor on. He managed to get the attention of one guy, though.

The man glared back at him. "Get outta here, midget."

Now, Edward had never been called such a thing in his entire life—being stuck in a tower for that entire time kinda left a person out of a lot of things—but for some reason, the insult cut deep into his soul and his pride. His golden eyes lit up like fire, and he leapt onto a nearby table.

"WHO'RE YOU CALLING SO SHORT HE CAN'T EVEN SAVE THE GIRL WHO'S SUPPOSED TO TAKE HIM TO SEE THE FLOATING LANTERNS, THUS FULFILLING HIS LIFELONG GOAL OF SEEING THE FLOATING LANTERNS ON HIS BIRTHDAY, FOR GOODNESS'S SAKE! PUT HER DOWN! HAVEN'T ANY OF YOU EVER HAD A DREAM?!"

The men's' loud argument hushed, and heads turned toward Ed. The boy's chest was heaving as he fought to regain his breath. His face was flushed an angry red that matched his coat, and his fingers kept his frying pan in a tight grip. Winry, her skin plastered with a nervous sweat, watched with wide eyes. She was held completely off the ground.

A silence stretched out for several moments.

"Did he say the floating lanterns?" someone asked. Ed wasn't sure who said it.

"Those're pretty," someone added.

"...I used to go every year..."

One of the men, a tall, muscular figure with a straight black moustache and a patch over his eye, walked through the crowd toward Ed. As he moved, the man unsheathed a sword from a scabbard and held it aloft. Even with his added height, Ed was pretty much only just able to keep himself from wetting his pants. He scurried down and backed away from the man, but was forced to stop when he backed into the bar. The man kept moving, and soon towered above him. His one eye glinted red.

Then he shifted, and he looked like he was about to cry. "I had a dream, once."

He tossed his sword, and the blade became embedded into the wall.

The man stood up straight, still looking rather sad. He extended his hand. "My name is King Bradley."

"Uh...Edward." The boy's golden gaze flickered from Bradley's hand to his face—specifically his eye patch—and back again. He hesitantly took Bradley's hand, and the man helped him to stand up straight.

"Come with me," Bradley said, but he didn't give Ed much choice—he dragged the boy to a small stage, where a piano stood.

"We all have dreams, kid," he said, taking a seat on the bench. He played a scale, then closed his eyes as if he found some sort of beautiful relief in the sound. "I always wanted to be a concert pianist. I mean..." He played more scales, his fingers moving quickly over the ivory. "I've always wanted to perform Mozart, or, ah, write show tunes." He smiled. "Yeah. We've all got dreams."

A man came up from the audience, looking a little starry-eyed. "I, uh, get what you guys are saying," he said, running a hand through his short blond hair. He held out his hand to Ed, who reluctantly took it. "Name's Havoc. My dream... Well, I've always wanted to make a love connection."

Ed quickly pulled his hand away.

Havoc didn't seem to notice. He wrapped an arm around Ed as Bradley continued to play a light, catchy tune. He pointed into the crowd. "Brosh over there would like to quit and be a florist. Falman does interior design."

The first man blushed and pulled the flower out of his hair. The second man didn't notice them; he was too busy rearranging the chairs.

Havoc kept pointing at random people. "Scar is into mime, and Armstrong's cupcakes are sublime."

A tall, tan man with white face paint and red eyes was currently throwing an invisible rope at the drunkard from earlier—Yoki. He tried to pull him, but Yoki wasn't really having any of that. Nearby, a huge, huge man with a multitude of muscles was carrying a tray of pink, sparkly cupcakes around the room.

"Breda knits." A redheaded, potbellied man sat in the corner, working on a scarf. "Kimblee sews." A white-suited man frowned as he worked with a needle and thread to fix his hat. "And Kain does little puppet shows!" A short, spiky-haired man with spectacles was smiling as he used socks on his hands to talk with a dog, which looked like it wanted to eat said puppets.

"And finally," Havoc said, dragging Edward across the stage to where a massive bear of a man sat at a small table. "Buccaneer collects ceramic unicorns."

The mohawked man smiled lightly and made two tiny unicorns touch muzzles.

"Um... That's really...cool," Ed said lamely, unsure whether or not he should be impressed. He'd spent roughly eighteen years locked in a tower, after all, so it wasn't like he had the social skills to really know the norm.

"...This is cool and all," Winry called out, "but can you guys let me down now? Like Blondie said, we gotta get going."

Bradley abruptly stopped playing and stood. He glared out at Winry. "You. Tell us what your dream is."

Winry blinked her big blue eyes.

"Yeah," Havoc called. "Tell us!"

The men that were holding Winry rushed to put her on the stage. She stumbled a little, then looked out over the audience and flushed. "I'm not really—"

"Tell us," Bradley barked, and she flinched.

"W-well," she said, nervously poking her fingers together. "I, uh, want to own an automail shop. But on an island. Surrounded by enormous piles of money. All alone."

No one spoke for a moment.

Scar, the silent mime, looked over at her. "That dream sucks."