rio obviously had a little crown matching her own made for nicky
rio calls nicky "mijo", nicky calls rio "mami"
when rio is home, she and nicky spend all their time outside where rio teaches nicky all she knows about nature
when rio brings people to the afterlife, nicky will often excitedly meet her at the end of the bridge, telling her about his day
he's especially good at welcoming other children who are scared—he will take them by their hand and echo all the things rio has told him about life and death being a circle as he brings them to their destination with rio walking two steps behind them, beaming with pride but also ridden with unwarranted guilt that she gets to experience their son's beautiful personality every day and agatha doesn't
as rio brought alice to the afterlife, nicky jumped out at them, wearing a plague doctor mask, trying to scare them and rio said "excuse my son, as you can tell, he got all of my looks but all of agatha's personality"
actually scratch that, rio refuses to acknowledge that nicky is a carbon copy of her, completely blinded by all the parts of agatha she sees in him
rio has never badmouthed agatha to nicky—on the contrary, every time she comes home to nicky without agatha and sees the disappointment in his eyes, she makes sure to tell him that the only reason a witch as magnificent as agatha would even consider death an option is to be reunited with him and that she will try to do a better job bringing her back with her next time
but rios anger with agatha is also directly proportional to the amount of excuses she has made to nicky as to why agatha keeps avoiding death—and with that, nicky—so vehemently
rio sees nicky as the only good thing that has ever come of her. she's so used to people lamenting her existence—even agatha ended up getting hurt by the nature of her existence—so in rio's mind, nicky is the only thing of her making, her being, that has caused unbridled joy and love and happiness and she would put him before anyone else—EVEN agatha
which is why agatha "choosing" billy over nicky at the end of aaa has really good story arc potential for s2 because while rio will absolutely sit back and take everything agatha hurls at her, she would never forgive her son being betrayed (watch your back billy maximoff 🙃)
