forgot my gmail password and recovery keeps failing

You can't see the password on the phone, Google doesn't show it anywhere. But being signed in on the phone is the useful bit. Do the recovery on that phone, not the laptop. When it asks for the old number hit "Try another way" until it offers to send a prompt to your phone, tap yes on it and it'll let you set a new password. Then go into Security and swap that dead number for your current one so this doesn't happen again.